177:

178:

Bring me Porphyrius and my Empress dead,
I would brave Heav'n, in my each hand a head.

Il dit en mourant:

And shoving back this earth on which I sit,
I'll mount, and scatter all the gods I hit.

179:

And why this niceness to that pleasure shown,
Where Nature sums up all her joys in one....
Promiscuous love is Nature's general law;
For whosoever the first lovers were,
Brother and sister made the second pair,
And doubled by their love their piety....
You must be mine that you may learn to live.

Remarquez que cette furie, six vers plus loin, copie une réponse de Phèdre. Dryden a cru imiter Racine.

(Aurengzebe, acte IV, sc. i.)

180:

181:

182:

183:

The Moors have heaven and me to assist them....
I'll whistle thy tame fortune after me....

Il devient amoureux. Voici en quel style il parle de l'amour:

184: Voir la chanson sur laquelle on danse la Zambra dans Almanzor.

185:

186:

187:

188:

Des dames si logiciennes ont des grossièretés étranges: Lyndaxara son amant qui la supplie de le rendre «heureux».

If I make you so, you shall pay my price.

189:

He words me, girls, he words me, that I should not
By noble to myself; but hark thee, Charmion....
Now, Iras, what think'st thou?
Thou, an Egyptian puppet, shalt be shown
In Rome, as well as I. Mechanic slaves,
With greasy aprons, rules and hammers, shall
Uplift us to the view....
Saucy lictors
Will catch at us like strumpets; and scald rhymers
Ballad us out o'tune; the quick comedians
Extemporally will stage us, and present
Our Alexandrian revels; Antony
Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see
Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness
I' the posture of a whore....
Husband, I come;
Now to that name my courage prove my title!
I am fire and air; my other elements
I give to baser life.—So, you have done!
Come then, and take the last warmth of my lips.
Farewell, kind Charmion—Iras, long long farewell.
Dost thou not see my baby at my breast,
That sucks the nurse asleep?

Cette gaminerie amère de courtisane et d'artiste est sublime.

190: The World well lost, acte II.

191:

Come to me, come, my soldier, to my arms.
You have been too long away from my embraces.
But when I have you fast and all my own,
With broken murmurs and amorous sighs
I'll say you were unkind and punish you
And mark you red with many an eager kiss.

192:

193: Miranda dit: «And if I can but escape with life, I had rather lie in pain nine months, as my father threatened, than lose my longing.»—Dryden donne une sœur à Miranda; elles se querellent, et sont jalouses l'une de l'autre, etc.—Voyez aussi la description qu'Ève fait de son bonheur, et les idées que ses confidences suggèrent à Satan (acte III, sc. i).

194: Cette impuissance ressemble à celle de Casimir Delavigne.

195:

196:

197:

198:

No; 'tis you dream; you sleep away your hours
In desperate sloth, miscall'd philosophy.
Up, up, for honour's sake; twelve legions wait you,
And long to call you chief. By painful journeys
I led 'em patient both of heat and hunger,
Down from the Parthian marches to the Nile.
'Twill do you good to see their sun-burnt faces,
Their scarr'd cheeks, and chopt hands; there's virtue in 'em:
They'll sell those mangled limbs at dearer rates
Than yon trim bands can buy.

199:

200:

201:

Let Cæsar walk
Alone upon it. I am weary of my part.
My torch is out, and the world stands before me
Like a black desert. At the approach of night
I'll lay me down and stray no farther on.

202:

203: Voir la mort de Pierre et de Jaffier. Pierre, une fois poignardé, éclate de rire.

204:

Il y a de la jalousie dans ce dernier mot.

205:

206: La petite Laclos disait à je ne sais plus quel duc en lui prenant son grand cordon: «Mets-toi à genoux là-dessus, vieille ducaille!» Et le duc se mettait à genoux.

207:

208:

209:

Impossible de voir ensemble plus de coquinerie morale et de correction littéraire.

210:

211: Burns disait que dans son village il était arrivé, au moyen du raisonnement et des livres, à se figurer à peu près exactement tout ce qu'il avait vu plus tard dans les salons, tout, sauf une femme du grand monde.

212: «The stage to which my genius never much inclined me.»

213: I might find in France a living Horace and a Juvenal in the person of the admirable Boileau, whose numbers are excellent, whose expressions are noble, whose thoughts are just, whose language is pure, whose satire is pointed, and whose sense is close. What he borrows from the ancient, he repays with usury of his own; in coin as good and almost as universally valuable. (Dédicace au comte de Dorcet.)

214: «Spenser wanted only to have read the rules of Bossu.» Ailleurs il cite Longin, Boileau, Rapin: «The latter of whom is alone sufficient, were all other criticks lost, to teach anew the rules of writing.»

Arioste neither designed justly, nor observed any unity of action or compass of time, or moderation in the vastness of his draught. His style is luxurious without majesty or decency, and his adventures without the compass of nature and possibility.

215: His wit is faint, and his salt almost insipid. Juvenal is of a more vigorous and masculine wit; he gives me as much pleasure as I can bear.

216: Their language is not strung with sinews like our English. It has the nimbleness of a grey-hound, but not the bulk and body of a mastiff. They have set up purity for the standard of their language, and a masculine vigour is that of ours.

217: To receive the blessings and prayers of mankind, you need only be seen together. We are ready to conclude that you are a pair of angels sent below to make virtue amiable in your persons, or to sit for poets when they would pleasantly instruct the age, by drawing goodness in the most perfect and alluring shape of nature.... No part of Europe can afford a parallel to your noble Lord in masculine beauty and in goodliness of shape. (Dédicace de la Conquête de Mexico.)

You have all the advantages of mind and body, and an illustrious birth, conspiring to render you an extraordinary person. The Achilles and the Rinaldo are present in you, even above their originals; you only want a Homer or a Tasso to make you equal to them. Youth, beauty, and courage (all which you possess in the highest of their perfection) are the most desirable gifts of Heaven. (Dédicace de la Royale Martyre, au duc de Monmouth.)

218: «All men will join with me in the adoration which I pay you.»—Au comte de Rochester, il écrit: «I find it is not for me to contend any way with your Lordship, who can write better on the meanest subject, than I can on the best.... You are above any incense I give you.»—Dans la dédicace de ses fables, il compare le duc d'Osmond à Nestor, Joseph, Ulysse, Lucullus, etc.—Un autre jour, il compare la Castlemaine à Caton.

219:

Why should a foolish marriage vow,
Which long ago was made,
Oblige us to each other now,
When passion is decay'd?
We lov'd, and we lov'd as long we cou'd,
'Till our love was lov'd out in us both.
But our marriage is dead when the pleasure is fled;
'Twas pleasure first made it an oath.

220: They are no more mine when I receive them, than the light of the moon can be allowed to be her own, who shines but by the reflection of her brother. (1693. Lettre à Dennis.)

221: Her weight made the horses travel very heavily; but to give them a breathing time, she would often stop us, and plead some necessity of nature, and tell us we were all flesh and blood.

222: This définition, though critics raised a logical objection against it—that it was only a genere et fine, and so not altogether perfect, was yet well received by the rest.

223: It is charged upon me that I make debauched persons my protagonists, or the chief persons of the drama, and that I make them happy in the conclusion of my play; against the law of comedy which is to reward virtue and punish vice. (Préface du Mock Astrologer.)

224: It is not that I would explode the use of metaphors from passion, for Longinus thinks them necessary to raise it.

225: Dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my talent. Yet, for your sake, I will struggle with the plain openness of my nature. In the mean time, I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes; but do my duty and suffer for God's sake.—You know the profits (of Virgil) might have been more; but neither my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take them. But I can never repent my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer.

226: I have done something, so far to conquer my own spirit as to ask it.

227: More libels have been written against me than almost any man now living. I have seldom answered any scurrilous lampoon, and, being naturally vindictive, have suffered in silence, and possessed my soul in quiet.

228: I shall say the less of M^r Collier, because in many things he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts or 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, and I have given him no personal occasion to be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance.»—Il y a de l'esprit dans ce qui suit: «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. (Préface des Fables.)

229: Thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast upon me, that my only difficulty is to chuse or to reject; to run them into verses or to give them the other harmony of prose. I have so long studied and practised both, that they are grown into habit and become familiar to me.

230: They who can criticise so weakly as to imagine that I have done my worst may be convinced at their own cost, that I can write severely with more ease, than I can gently.

231: Charles I^er.

232: Le duc de Monmouth.

233: Le comte de Shaftesbury.

Of these false Achitophel was first;
A name to all succeeding ages curst:
For close designs and crooked counsels fit;
Sagacious, bold, and turbulent of wit;
Restless, unfix'd in principles and place;
In power unpleas'd, impatient of disgrace:
A fiery soul, which, working out its way,
Fretted the pigmy body to decay,
And o'er-inform'd the tenement of clay.
A daring pilot in extremity;
Pleas'd with the danger when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but, for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else why should he, with wealth and honour blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please,
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeather'd two-legg'd thing, a son;
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try,
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolv'd to ruin or to rule the state.

234: Le duc de Buckingham.

235:

In the first rank of these did Zimri stand;
A man so various that he seem'd to be
Not one, but all mankind's epitome:
Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong,
Was ev'ry thing by starts, and nothing long
But, in the course of one revolving moon,
Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon;
Then all for women, painting, rhyming, drinking,
Besides ten thousand freaks that died in thinking.
Blest madman! who could ev'ry hour employ
With something new to wish, or to enjoy.
Railing and praising were his usual themes;
And both, to show his judgment, in extremes;
So over-violent, or over-civil,
That ev'ry man with him was God or devil.
In squandering wealth was his peculiar art;
Nothing went unrewarded but desert:
Beggar'd by fools, whom still he found too late,
He had his jest, and they had his estate;
He laugh'd himself from court, then sought relief
By forming parties, but could ne'er be chief;
For, spite of him, the weight of business fell
On Absalom and wise Achitophel:
Thus, wicked but in will, of means bereft,
He left not faction, but of that was left.

236: Slingsby Bethel.

237:

Shimei, whose youth did early promise bring
Of zeal to God and hatred to his king;
Did wisely from expensive sins refrain,
And never broke the Sabbath but for gain;
Nor was he ever known an oath to vent,
Or curse unless against the Government.

238:

239: The nation is in too high a ferment for me to expect either fair war, or even so much as fair quarter, from a reader of the opposite party.

240: Mac-Fleknoë.

241:

The hoary prince in majesty appear'd,
High on a throne of his own labours rear'd.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sat,
Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state;
His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,
And lambent dulness play'd around his face.
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
Sworn by his sire a mortal foe to Rome,
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain,
That he, till death, true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father's right, and realm's defence,
Ne'er to have peace with Wit, nor truce with sense.
The king himself the sacred unction made,
As king by office, and as priest by trade.
In his sinister hand, instead of ball,
He placed a mighty mug of potent ale.

242: Îles où l'on transportait les condamnés.

243:

«Heav'n bless my son, from Ireland let him reign,
To far Barbadoes on the western main;
Of his dominion may no end be known,
And greater than his father's be his throne;
Beyond Love's Kingdom let him stretch his pen!»
He paus'd; and all the people cried, Amen.
Then thus continued he: «My son, advance
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let others teach; learn thou, from me
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ;
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let 'em be all by thy own model made
Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid;
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own.
Nay, let thy men of wit, too, be the same,
All full of thee, and diff'ring but in name.»

244:

«Like mine, thy gentle numbers feebly creep;
Thy tragic muse gives smiles; thy comic, sleep.
With whate'er gall thou sett'st thyself to write,
Thy inoffensive satires never bite.
In thy felonious heart though venom lies,
It does but touch thy Irish pen, and dies.
Thy genius calls thee not to purchase fame
In keen Iambics, but mild Anagram.
Leave writing plays, and choose for thy command
Some peaceful province in Acrostic land.
There thou may'st wings display, and altars raise,
And torture one poor word ten thousand ways.
Or, if thou wouldst thy diff'rent talents suit,
Set thy own songs, and sing them to thy lute.»
He said: but his last words were scarcely heard,
For Bruce and Longvil had a trap prepared;
And down they sent the yet declaiming bard.
Sinking, he let his drugget robe behind,
Borne upwards by a subterranean wind.
The mantle fell to the young prophet's part
With double portion of his father's art.

245:

Strong were our sires, and as they fought they writ,
Conqu'ring with force of arms and dint of wit.
Theirs was the giant race, before the flood.
And thus, when Charles return'd, our empire stood.
Like James, he the stubborn soil manur'd,
With rules of husbandry the rankness cur'd,
Tam'd us to manners, when the stage was rude
And boisterous English wit with art indu'd....
But what we gain'd in skill we lost in strength,
Our builders were with want of genius curs'd,
The second temple was not like the first.

246:

247:

Why then should I, encouraging the bad,
Turn rebel, and run popularly mad?

248:

Though Huguenots contemn our ordination
Succession, ministerial vocation, etc.

Voilà les cailloux théologiques sur lesquels on trébuche dix fois par livre.

But once possess'd of what with care you save,
The wanton boys would piss upon your grave.

Telles sont les grossièretés dans lesquelles la polémique s'engage vingt fois par livre.

249: Préface de la Religio Laici.

250: I have studied him and hope the style of his Epistles is not ill imitated here.

251: Le mot d'Auguste sur Horace est charmant, mais on ne peut citer, même en latin.

252: Treizième épître.

253:

How bless'd is he who leads a country life,
Unvex'd with anxious cares, and void of strife!
With crowds attended of your ancient race,
You seek the champaign sports or sylvan chase:
With well-breath'd beagles you surround the wood,
E'en then industrious of the common good;
And often have you brought the wily fox
To suffer for the firstlings of the flocks;
Chas'd e'en amid the folds, and made to bleed,
Like felons where they did the murderous deed.
This fiery game your active youth maintain'd,
Not yet by years extinguish'd, though restrain'd....
A patriot both the king and country serves,
Prerogative and privilege preserves;
Of each our laws the certain limit show;
One must not ebb, nor t'other overflow:
Betwixt the prince and parliament we stand,
The barriers of the state on either hand
May neither overflow, for then they drown the land.
When both are full they feed our bless'd abode,
Like those that water'd once the Paradise of God.
Some overpoise of sway, by turns, they share;
In peace the people; and the prince in war:
Consuls of moderate power in calms were made;
When the Gauls came, one sole Dictator sway'd.
Patriots in peace assert the people's right,
With noble stubbornness resisting might;
No lawless mandates from the court receive,
Nor lend by force, but in a body give.

254:

Dim as the borrow'd beams of moon and stars
To lonely, weary, wand'ring travellers,
Is reason to the soul: and as on high
Those rolling fires discover but the sky,
Nor light us here; so Reason's glimm'ring ray
Was lent, not to assure our doleful way,
But guide us upward to a better day.
And as those nightly tapers disappear
When day's bright lord ascends our hemisphere;
So pale grows Reason at Religion's sight,
So dies, and so dissolves in supernatural light.

255: Religio Laici, Hind and Panther.

But, gracious God! how well dost thou provide
For erring judgments an unerring guide!
Thy throne is darkness in th' abyss of light,
A blaze of glory that forbids the sight.
O teach me to believe thee thus conceal'd,
And search no farther than thyself reveal'd;
But her alone for my director take,
Whom thou bast promised never to forsake!
My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires,
My manhood, long misled by wandering fires,
Follow'd false lights, and when their glimpse was gone,
My pride struck out new sparkles of her own.
Such was I; such by nature still I am;
Be thine the glory, and be mine the shame!
Good life be now my task; my doubts are done.

256: Theodore et Honoria.

257:

New blossoms flourish and new flowers arise,
As God had been abroad, and, walking there,
Had left his footsteps and reform'd the year.
The sunny hills from far were seen to glow
With glitt'ring beams, and in the meads below
The burnish'd brooks appear'd with gold to flow,
As last they heard the foolish cuckoo sing,
Whose note proclaim'd the holyday of spring.

258:

For her the weeping heaven become serene,
For her the ground is clad in cheerful green,
For her the nightingales are taught to sing,
And nature for her has delayed the spring.

Ces vers charmants sur la duchesse d'York rappellent ceux de La Fontaine sur la princesse de Conti.

259: Par exemple dans son Chant du Cirque.

260:

The praise of Bacchus then the sweet musician sung,
Of Bacchus, ever fair and ever young.
The jolly god in triumph comes;
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums.
Flush'd with a purple grace,
He shows his honest face.
Now give the hautboys breath;nhe comes! he comes.
Bacchus! ever fair and young,
Drinking joys did first ordain;
Bacchus' blessings are a treasure,
Drinking is the soldiers's pleasure;
Rich the treasure,
Sweet the pleasure;
Sweet is pleasure after pain.

261:

Now strike the golden lyre again:
And louder yet, and yet a louder strain.
Break his bands of sleep asunder,
And rouse him, like a rattling peal of thunder.
Hark, hark, the horrid sound
Has rais'd up his head,
As awak'd from the dead,
And amaz'd, he stares around.
Revenge! revenge! Timotheus cries,
See the furies arise!
See the snakes that they bear,
How they hiss in the air!
And the sparkles that flash from their eyes!
Behold a ghastly band,
Each a torch in his hand!
These are Grecian ghosts, that in battle were slain,
And unbury'd remain
Inglorious on the plain:
Give the vengeance due
To the valiant crew:
Behold how they toss their torches on high,
How they point to the Persian abodes,
And glitt'ring temples of their hostile gods!
The princes applaud with a furious joy,
And the King seiz'd a flambeau with a zeal to destroy.
Thaïs led the way,
To light him to his prey,
And, like another Helen, fir'd another Troy.

262: On lui payait dix mille vers deux cent cinquante guinées.

263: Post-scriptum de la traduction de Virgile.

264: 1742. Rapport de lord Lonsdale.

265: "In the present inflamed temper of the people, the act could not be carried into execution without an armed force." (Discours de Walpole.)

266: Voyez le terrible discours de Walpole contre lui, 1734.

267: Notes sur son voyage en Angleterre.

268: Frédéric, mort en 1751. Mémoires de Walpole, t. I, p. 76.

269: The young men were all rakes; the young women made love instead of waiting till it was made to them.

270: Personnage de Birton, dans le Jenny de Voltaire.

271: «Les Anglais ont ordinairement vingt ans avant d'avoir parlé à quelque personne au-dessus de leur maître d'école et de leurs compagnons de collége; s'il arrive qu'ils aient du savoir, tout se termine au grec et au latin, mais pas un seul mot de l'histoire ou des langues modernes. Ainsi préparés ils se mettent à voyager; mais comme ils manquent de dextérité, qu'ils sont extrêmement honteux et timides et qu'ils n'ont point l'usage des langues étrangères, ils vivent entre eux et mangent ensemble dans les auberges.» (Lettres de lord Chesterfield.)

«Je souhaiterais que vous les priassiez de vous donner des lettres de recommandation pour les jeunes gens du bel air et pour les coquettes sur le bon ton, afin que vous pussiez être dans l'honnête débauche de Munich.» (Ibidem.)

272: Through the whole piece, you may observe such a similitude of manners in high and low life, that it is difficult to determine whether, in the fashionable vices, the fine gentlemen imitate the gentlemen of the road, or the gentlemen of the road the fine gentlemen.

273: My daughter to me should be, like a court lady to a minister of state, a key to a whole gang.

A woman knows how to be mercenary though she has never been in a court or at an assembly.

Why, foolish jade, thou wilt be as ill-used and as much neglected as if thou hadst married a Lord!

.... I did not marry him as 'tis the fashion coolly and deliberately for honour or money. But I love him.

Love him, worse and worse! I thought the girl had been better bred.

274: You see, gentlemen, I am not a mere court friend, who professes every thing and will do nothing.... But we, gentlemen, have still honour enough to break through the corruptions of the world.

275: