FOOTNOTES:
[112] Fresnoy employed above twenty years in finishing this poem.
[113] Our author began his translation of Virgil in the preceding year, 1694.—Malone.
[114] In May 1664, Gio. Pietro Bellori read a discourse in the Academy of St Luke at Rome, (Carlo Maratti being then president,) entitled—L’Idea del Pittore, dello Scultore, e dell’ Architetto, scelta dalle bellezze naturali superiore alla Natura. This discourse, from which the following extract is taken, was afterwards prefixed to Le Vite de Pittore, &c. by the same author, printed at Rome in 4to, 1672.—Malone.
[115] The ΕΙΚΟΝΕΣ of Flavius Philostratus, who flourished in the beginning of the third century, was first printed by Aldus in 1502.—Malone.
[116] i.e. Merchant vessels. The passage seems to be so worded, as to contain a sneer at the negligence of King William’s government in protecting the trade. Perhaps Dryden alluded to the misfortune of Sir Francis Wheeler, in 1693, who, being sent with a convoy into the Mediterranean, was wrecked in the bay of Gibraltar.
[117] The principal female character in “Tyrannic Love, or The Royal Martyr.” See Vol. III. page 343.
[118] In the epistle in which he describes our Saviour’s person and manners.
[119] In his treatise on Epic Poetry.
[120] This line is a little misquoted. The couplets run,
[121] Our author had previously quoted the lines here alluded to, in defence of the indecencies of one of his comedies. Vol. VI. p. 10.
[122] The celebrity of that action, which is generally called the continence of Scipio, gives us a woeful idea of the gross barbarity of the age in which he lived. What would now be said of a general, who did not act as Scipio is said to have done? Assuredly, his refusing the ransom would be thought more wonderful, than his dismissing, uninjured, the betrothed princess.
[123] There is a fallacy in this, which a moment’s consideration may detect. Painting does not present in one moment what tragedy shews in many hours, and cannot, on the contrary, shew more than one scene, at one minute and point of time. Doubtless, by presenting to us one striking situation, the painting recals, if we know the story, all that has preceded and is to follow; but this arises from association, and happens equally if we come suddenly into a theatre where a well-known tragedy is performing.
[124] A Dutch fair. Dryden probably recollected the pieces of Teniers.
[125] The passage alluded to is in Aristotle’s “Treatise on Poetry,” in which he accounts for the pleasure afforded by the imitative arts, by observing, that “to learn is a natural pleasure.” “To the same purpose (says Mr Twining,) in his ‘Rhetorick,’ lib. i. cap. xi. p. 537. edit. Duval. Επει δε το μανθανειν, κ. τ. λ. ‘And as it is by nature delightful to learn, to admire, and the like, hence we necessarily receive pleasure from imitative arts, as painting, sculpture, and poetry, and from whatever is well imitated, even though the original may be disagreeable; but our pleasure does not arise from the beauty of the thing itself, but from the inference, the discovery that this is that, &c. so that we seem to learn something.’
“Μανθανειν—to learn, to know, i.e. merely to recognize, discover, &c.,” See Harris, On Music, Painting, &c. ch. iv. note (b). The meaning is sufficiently explained by what follows.
“Dryden, who scarce ever mentions Aristotle without discovering that he had looked only at the wrong side of the tapestry, (a translation,) says, ‘Aristotle tells us, that imitation pleases, because it affords matter for a reasoner to inquire into the truth or falsehood of imitation,’ &c. But Aristotle is not here speaking of reasoners, or inquiry, but, on the contrary, of the vulgar, the generality of mankind, whom he expressly opposes to philosophers, or reasoners: and his συλλογιζεσθαι is no more than that rapid, habitual, and imperceptible act of the mind, that ‘raisonnement aussi prompt que le coup d’œil,’ (as it is well paraphrased by M. Batteux,) by which we collect or infer, from a comparison of the picture with the image of the original in our minds, that it was intended to represent that original.
“The fullest illustration of this passage is to be found in another work of Aristotle, his ‘Rhetoric,’ lib. iii. cap. x. where he applies the same principle to metaphorical language, and resolves the pleasure we receive from such language, into that which arises from the μαθησις ΤΑΧΕΙΑ, the exercise of our understandings in discovering the meaning by a quick and easy perception of some quality, or qualities, common to the thing expressed, and the thing intended; to a mirror, for example, and to the theatre, when the latter is called metaphorically, the mirror of human life.
“Dryden (Mr Twining further observes) seems to have taken his idea from Dacier’s note on this place, (in the ‘Treatise on Poetry,’) which is extremely confused, and so expressed, as to leave it doubtful whether he misunderstood the original, or only explained himself awkwardly. The use that Dryden made of French critics and translators is well known.” Aristotle’s Treatise on Poetry, translated, with Notes. &c. by Thomas Twining, A. M. 4to, 1789, p. 186.—Malone.
[126] This is hardly accurate. Lopez de Vega did indeed despise the rules laid down by others, but he made no new regulations.
[128] Nothing can be more hazardous for a dramatist than the introduction of many inferior characters. In proportion to the numbers of the Dramatis Personæ, the difficulty of getting up a piece is increased in a tremendous ratio; since even the awkwardness of a domestic, or the ridiculous gait of a guard, may throw the audience into a tone of feeling very inconsistent with tragic effect. Undoubtedly, could the expence be supported, something might be gained by drilling underlings to such inferior characters, and teaching even the mutes to look, as it they took some interest in what is going forward; but, at present, the entrance and exit of a hero, cum suis, has something in it irresistibly ludicrous. Here the painter has a decisive advantage over the dramatist, since it costs him nothing to finish his inferior personages in a style as correspondent to truth as the principal.
[129] I retain Mr Malone’s excellent note. “This description seems at the first view to be intended for Congreve, to whom it is certainly sufficiently applicable, and who had produced his ‘Double Dealer’ in the preceding year, and his ‘Love for Love’ in 1695. But beside that Dryden’s high admiration of Congreve, which he had so strongly manifested in the admirable verses addressed to that poet on the former play, will not admit of such an application, the words—‘I knew,’ clearly denote a dead poet, and consequently will exclude Wycherley also. The person meant therefore, I think, was Sir George Etherege, who died a few years before. In Dryden’s Epilogue to that author’s ‘Man of Mode,’ he says,
[130] Nat. Lee.
[131] Dryden probably recollected, particularly, Lee’s famous rant at the conclusion of the fourth act of Œdipus:
[132] “Pericles, Prince of Tyre,” which has been generally imputed to Shakespeare, though the internal evidence is not in favour of the supposition. Dryden believed it to be one of his earliest pieces:
This order was probably assigned from the confessed inferiority of Pericles to Shakespeare’s later plays. But that apology cannot be received; for if Shakespeare had any hand in Pericles at all, it was at a late period of his dramatic career.—See Vol. X. p. 335, and the remarks on Pericles in Malone’s Shakespeare.
[133] Morecraft is an usurer in Beaumont and Fletcher’s comedy of the “Scornful Lady,” who, having been cheated and discomfited, as usurers commonly are in the drama, (I suppose to compensate their success in real life,) at the end of the play suddenly changes his character for that of an extravagant gallant, and assumes the denomination of cutting, or as we would now say dashing, Morecraft.—See Vol. IV. p. 241.
[134] Mr Malone thinks this alludes to the translation of Virgil, in which Dryden was now engaged. But I conceive it has a general reference to his situation as a suspected and discountenanced person; restrained from free exertion of his genius, by the necessity of considering that he was exposed to misconstruction. He must have recollected the suppression of “Cleomenes,” and the offence taken by government at the prologue to the “Prophetess.” In truth, the very expression in the text is elsewhere hitched into rhyme:
[135] A comedy written by Sir Robert Stapylton, and acted by the Duke of York’s servants, at their theatre in Lincoln’s-Inn-Fields, in 1663. Dryden has elsewhere undervalued this play, Vol. X. p. 336:
Sir Robert Stapylton, the author of the “Slighted Maid,” translated Juvenal and Musæus, and wrote other two plays, called “The Step-mother,” and “Hero and Leander.”
[136] “Otway,” says Pope, “has written but two tragedies, out of six, that are pathetic. I believe he did it without much design, as Lillo has done in his ‘Barnwell.’ It is a talent of nature, rather than an effect of judgment, to write so movingly.”—Spence’s Anecdotes, quoted by Malone. Dryden, at an early period, is said to have set no high value upon Otway in other respects, while he allowed he excelled him in the art of affecting the passions.
[137] “Aristotle, in the place referred to, (περι ποιητ. κ. μς.) does not mention any third dramatic poet by name. He does indeed put the case of a third poet, who might pursue a method different from the practice either of Sophocles or Euripides, and represent things as they are said, and believed, to be. In the same passage, (which is manifestly corrupt,) he mentions an observation of Xenophanes, who, I believe, was the person here in our author’s thoughts.”—Malone.
[138] The first and third Acts.
[139] Our author has already compared the first of the lines alluded to—
with the first line of Virgil’s Eclogues.
[140] Theb. vi. 400, 401.
Our author’s confession of the difficulty of translating these lines, probably induced Pope to transplant them into his “Windsor Forest,” where they are thus beautifully paraphrased:
Our author trusted, as usual, to memory; for the first of the lines, quoted from Statius, runs differently:
but he was thinking on a passage in the Third Georgic:
[141] See Volume XIII. p. 320. There are good grounds for disbelieving this beautiful anecdote. See Malone’s note on this passage.
[142] The French translator here, as well as Mr Dryden, is unintelligible; which happened by their mistaking the meaning of the word opaca, which is not put for dark; but opaque, in opposition to transparent: for a white garment may be opaque, &c.
[143] M. Le Brun.
[144] M. Colbert.
[145] Pliny, xxxv. 10.
[146] Quinc. x. 3.
[147] Declam. xix.
[148] Lib. ii. Sat. 7.
[149] Lib. x. Ep. xxii.
[150] De Opt. Gen. Orat.
[151] Tableaux.
[152] That is to the eye, by diagrams and sketches, &c.
[153] In Œconomico.
[154] Comm. Vetus.
[155] Art of Poetry.
[156] Pro lege Man.
[157] This depends on the age and quality of the persons. The Apollo and Venus of Medicis have more than ten faces.
[158] The Apollo has a nose more.
[159] The Apollo has half a nose more; and the upper half of the Venus de Medicis is to the lower part of the belly, and not to the privy parts.
[160] Polydorus, Athenodorus, and Agesander, all Rhodians.
[161] Lib. ii. Pædag. cap. 12.
[162] Plutarch
[163] A figure made of wood, or cork, turning upon joints.
[164] Lib. xxv. 12.
[165] Lib. viii. 20.
[166] Lib. v. 8.
[167] Tuscul. lib. v.
[168] Georg. iii. l. 5.
[169] Ep. xvi.
[170] 1 Off.
[171] Diss. 34.
[172] Lib. xxxv. 10.
[173] Petron. Arbiter.
[174] Veget. de Re Milit. lib. 2.
[175] Lib. 1. de fin.
END OF THE SEVENTEENTH VOLUME.
Edinburgh:
Printed by James Ballantyne & Co.