D'RYDEN’S PROSE STYLE _

THESIS FOR DEGREE OFMA.
MICHIGAN STATE COLLEGE '
CATHERINE ANNE OAS.
1951

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thesis entitled

DRYDEN ' S PROSE STYLE

presented by

Catherine Anne 03.8

has been accepted towards fulfillment
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M- A. degree in English

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Major professor

Date October 27. 1951

 

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DRYDEN'S PROSE STYLE

by

Catherine Anne Oas
“"n—n

A THESIS
Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Michigan
State College of Agriculture and Applied Science
in partial fulfillment of the requirements
for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

Department of English
1951

THESIS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer wishes to eXpress her sincere appre-
ciation for the generous advice and aid given by Dr.
A. J. M. Smith, under whose guidance this paper was
written. She is also greatly indebted to Dr. Anders
Orbeck for his kind help and cooperation.

268350

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

I. Introduction

II. Critics of Dryden's Prose

III. Dryden's Place in the English Prose

Tradition

IV. Sources of Dryden's Prose Style
A. The New Science
B. Movements toward a British Academy
0. The Restoration Pulpit
D. Influence of the Court
E. French Influences
F. Latin Influences
G. The Man Himself

V. Analysis of Dryden's Prose Style

A. Diction

B. Figures

C. Syntax
l. Mechanics
2. Nouns
3. Verbs
4. Pronouns
5. Relatives

15
34
35
41
51
61
65
71
75
81
82
93
103
104
107
108
111
114

H.

6. Prepositions

7. Articles

8. Adjectives and Adverbs
Sentence Structure
Paragraph Structure

Organization of the Composition
and Tone as a'Whole

Rhythm in Dryden's Prose

Development of Dryden's Prose
Practice

VI. Types of Prose and Variety of Style
to Type

VII. Conclusion

BibliOgraphy

116
118
118
119
135

lhl
151

15#

157
173

I. EEODUCTICE

John Dryden, who was the foremost playwright of his
day and who through generations of criticism has held a
not indisputable place as a poet of high rank, is now be-
coming more and nore recognised by all good judges to be
the father of modern English prose. It is the purpose of
this paper to determine what Dryden did with prose and how
he did it. '

For the basis of my study of Dryden's prose I have
used Y. P. Ker's two volume edition of selected Essa ,
which contains the principal essays and prefaces. This
omits, besides some of the lighter complimentary prefaces
and dedications and several tracts on current affairs, his
prose plays, his lives of Plutarch and Lucian, his charac-
ters of Polybius and Saint Evrenond, and his translations
of Mainbourg's History 2; the; m, of Father Bouhours '
£1.13 2; gavier, and of Du Fresnoy's 1h; gt 2;, Painting.

All of these emissions are, I believe, justifiable in
a study of this sort. The prose of drama, and especially
of seventeenth century drama, is not the prose with which
one writes a sustained piece. It is a prose of art, and
not, as we shall see, the type of prose for which Dryden
is known. His lives of Plutarch and Lucian and his characters

of Saint Evrenond and Polybius were prefixed to capies of
their works translated by various hands and were written as,
and definitely are, the hackwork to which Dryden was often
forced to st00p.

Dryden's two longest prose writings are his translations
of the Life 9; Xavier and The His tory 9; the Leagu . Vhile
a study of his style and language in translation would prove
interesting, we can safely assume that Dryden's translations
are not Dryden. In prefaces to his various “rendered” works,
he has clearly given us his theory of translation. Although
he does not cling to a servile, literal translation, he re-
fuses to turn to the libertine way of imitation. The person-
ality of an author, the atmosphere, the style, are to be
faithfully followed by the translator:

The sense of an author, generally speaking is

to be sacred and inviolable. If the fancy of Ovid

be luxuriant, 'tis his character to be so; and if

I retrench it, he is no longer Ovid. It will be re-

plied, that he receives advantage by the lapping of

his superfluous branches; but I rejoin, that a trans-

lator has no such right. ‘Vhen a painter capies from

the life, I suppose he has no privilege to alter fea-

tures and lineanents, under pretence that his picture

will look'better: perhaps the face which he has drawn

would be more exact, if the eyes or nose were altered; 1

but 'tis his business to make it resemble the original.
And Dryden says again of his prose translation of Du Fresnoy,

"The prose translation of this poen.is not free from poetical

1w. P. xer, Essay! 9; goon Dryden, Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 1900, I, 2 2.

expressions, and I dare not promise that some of them are
not fus tian, or at least highly metaphorical; but this
being a fault in the first digestion (that is, the original
Latin), was not to be remedied in the second, y_i_.__. the trans-
lotion." 1 “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,"‘which was
prefixed to the translation, gives us an example of his
prose in translation. He translates over five pages from
Bellori's 1.1.19; 9; 1:23 Painters, and the style is certainly
not his own. "In these pompous expressions, or such as
these, the Italian has given you his Idea of a Painter; and
though I cannot much commend the style, I must needs say,
there is somewhat in the manner.“ 2
Dryden's letters are not extraordinary. They are the
letters of a busy man of his time concerned with his sons
and their well being, his neighbors, his financial condition,
and gifts of puddings and cold chicken. Although of interest
to the biographer, they show no merits that his essays do
not show more completely, and I have not included them in
the analysis of his style.
Dryden's prose prefaces and dedications, then, form the
chief basis of this analysis of his prose. It is those pre-
faces of which Swift said

 

11bid., "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” II, 116.
2Ibid., 123. '

J
A.
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.s
\VI
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Merely writ at first for filling
To raise the volume's price a shilling

which made their author the first writer of modern English
prose.

The analysis of prose style has long been one of the
most frustrating but fascinating tasks of scholarship. Like
human personality, literary style seems impossible to com-
pletely fathom. Even after its component parts have been
discovered and classified, the whole remains --more than the
sum of them and as illusive and intangible as ever. ' After
everything has been labeled, there still remain qualities
which cannot be pointed to and demonstrated and which the
critic must at last he reduced to describe by the unscientif-
ic and unscholarly adjective. Style is the personality of
the writer, his knowledge and background, his age and his
circumstances. It is his reasons for writing and the readers
for whom he writes. An author's style may be read in dif-
ferent ways by different critics, and a student is always
in danger of reading in too much here or too little there.
A complete and accurate study of style is always impossible.
The hope of those who study it is always to add a little,
of fact, interpretation, or approach, to the whole that is
known.

It may be that I have quoted too frequently from my
author. However, where he had said it, there seemed little

value in my repeating it when his words would give, not only
the sense, but the flavor of the subject of this paper.

And so, to borrow the lines of my author, ”I have not
engaged myself to any perfect method, neither an I loaded
with a full cargo. 'Tis sufficient if I bring a sample of
some goods in this voyage. It will be easy for others to
add more, ...for a treatise twice as large as this...could

not contain .11 that might be said.” 1

lIbid., 124.

II. CBITICS 0F DRYDEN'S PROBE

The fate of Dryden's prose with the critics has been
the fate of his age in general. He suffered in the eight-
eenth century for his lack of correctness, as Shakespeare
and Chaucer suffered in his own times. In the Romantic
period, as he and Pape could not hold their own in an age
attuned to‘wordsworth, so his prose could not charm those
used to De Quincey and Landor.

It has been Dryden's particular fortune, however, to
have good critics rather than many, and to have one, at
least, in every age. For it seemed that in every period
there was a critic like Dryden himself, who, though knowing
the rules and judgments of his era and willing to pay them
lip service and often more, was still free enough to re-
cognise what was good and praise it, whether it fit the
prevailing standard or not. As Dryden in his time admired
Jonson, but loved Shakespeare; so the great critics and
writers who followed him admired correctness but gave him
their devoted homage for the excellence of his style.

Congreve (1670-1729), the friend of his old age, in
a dedication to a posthumous edition of Dryden's dramatic
works, gives us the first written tribute to his prose:

Inc was equally excellent in verse and prose. His
prose had all the clearness imaginable, together

with all the nobleness of expression, all the
graces and ornaments prOper and peculiar to

it, without deviating into the language or dic-
tion of poetry. I make this observation only
to distinguish his style from that of many
poetical writers, who meaning to write harm0ni-
ously in prosf, do in truth often write mere
blank verse.

Perhaps the most famous and the best of all passages
on Dryden 's prose style is that of Samuel Johnson (1709-
1780 in his life of Dryden in The L332; 2; thy, 2253;.
Johnson, who himself was to add his contribution to the
English prose tradition which Dryden originated, praises
in his more formal, ponderous style the first master of
the other sort of prose:

Criticism, either didactick or defensive,
occupies almost all his prose, except those
pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but
none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious.
They have not the formality of a settled style,
in which the first half of the sentence betrays
the other. The clauses are never balanced, nor
the periods modelled; every word seems to drOp
by chance, though it falls into its preper place.
Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy,
animated, and vigorous; what is little, is gay;
what is great, is splendid. He may be thought
to mention himself too frequently; but while he
forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse
him to stand high in his own. Every thing is
excused by the play of inages and the spriteli-
ness of expression. Though all is easy, nothing
is feeble; though all seem careless, there is
nothing harsh; and though, since his earlier
works, more than a century has passed, they have
nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.

He who writes much, will not easily escape
a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes
as may be easily noted. Dryden is always W

 

louoted in John Mitford, ”Life of Dryden" prefixed

to The Poetical Works 3; John Dr den, Boston: Hou ton,
MiffITn a 60.; Cmdge: Riverside Press, n.d., , cxl.

-u‘.‘

b,

'1...)

..

and the same, he does not exhibit a second time
the same elegancies in the same form, nor appears
to have any art other than that of expressing with
clearness what he thinks with vigour. His style
could not easily be imitated, either seriously or
ludicrously; for, being always equable and always
varied, it has no prominent or discriminative
characters. The beauty who is totally free from
disproportion of parts and features, cannot be
ridiculed by an overcharged resemblance.

This quotation of Johnson's may have led Edmond Malone
(1741-1812) to his labors in behalf of Dryden. He was a
member of Johnson's "Club,” a friend of James Boswell,
and one of the most careful and painstaking of eighteenth
century scholars. Dryden’s debt to him is tremendous.

It was Malone who first laboriously collected what still
seem to be almost the only biographical facts we have,

and it was Malone who first attempted to sort the wheat
of truth from the chaff of slander and hearsay that sur-
rounds Dryden's personal life. ‘Working nearly a hundred
years after the writer's death, he devotedly collected

the letters, the critical and the miscellaneous works 2
of Dryden and carefully tracked down every rumor, anecdote,
and clue which might better justify and explain.Dryden to
the world. No one, I believe, has written since who has
not given him the enormous credit he deserves, and his is
still the standard edition of Dryden's prose.

_——-—‘ ———

18amuel Johnson, Lives 9;; the Poets, edited by c.
Birkbeck Hill, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1905, I, 15.

2Edmond Malone (ed.), Qritical and Miscellaneous Prose
'Works 9; John.Dryden, 4 vols., London: H. Baldwin.& Son,

1800.

Sir Yalter Scott (1771-1832), the most pepular of the
earlier writers of the Romantic movement, was the next to
champion the cause of the Restoration writer who had hardly
a romantic tendency in his nature. Scott's complete edition
of Dryden 's works appeared in 1808, ten years after the
Lyrical Ballads had become a manifesto for the romantics.

At a time when poetry was defined as ”the'spontaneous over-
flow of powerful feelings“ taking ”its origin from emotion
recollected in tranquillity,” Dryden's works must have felt
strangely out of place, but Scott championed them strongly
and well. ”The prose of Dryden,“ he wrote, “may rank with
the best in the English language.” 1

George Saintsbury, who has contributed the invaluable
volume on Dryden in the English Men of Letters series, was
throughout his life a zealous and excellent Dryden scholar.
In 1882 he started the eleven year work of revising and
correcting Scott's edition of the complete works. In his
introduction to those works he pays this tribute to Dryden's
modernity:

Dryden is in every sense a modern. Bis list of obso-
lete words is insignificant, of archaic phrases more

insignificant still, of obsolete constructions almost
a blank. If any Journalist or reviewer were to write
his tomorrow's leader or his next week's article in a
style absolutely modelled on Dryden, no one would

notice anything strange in it except perhaps that the
English was a good deal better than usual. 2

 

IScott, Valter (ed.), Mitorks 2; John Dr den, revised
bg George Saintsbury, 18 vols., Edinburgh: 9. Paterson,
1 82.1893, I, ‘36s

2Ibid 0 ’ Vii-1 '11 e

 

10

And in his English Men of Letters edition of Dryden, he
pays the writer this highest of tributes:

Considering what he started with, what he accom-
plished, and what advantages he left to his suc-
cessors, he must be pronounced, without exception,
the greatest craftsman in English letters, and as
such he ought to be regarded with peculiar venera-
tion by all who, in however humble a capacity, are
connected with the craft.

John Churton Collins, a friend of Saintsbury's, names
Dryden clearly as the father of English prose:

Of nodern English prose, of the prose, that is to
say; which exchanged the old synthetic and rhetor-
ical scheme of structure and colour for that happier
temper of ease and dignity, of grace and variety,
familiar to us in the style of such writers as
Addison, Bolingbroke and Chesterfigld, he was the
first to furnish a perfect model.

Another nineteenth century scholar, Richard Garnett,
writes of Dryden's prefaces in, it must be remembered, the
heyday of the purple passages of Peter:

llo other of our poets except Coleridge and words-
worth has given us anything so critically valuable,
but Dryden'e principal service is one which they
could not render; for, even if their style had
equalled his --and this would be too much to say
even of Wordsworth's --it could not have exerted the
same wide and salutary influence. Dryden is entitled
to be considered as the great reformer of English
prose, the writer in whom the sound principles of
the Restoration were above all others impersonated,
’ and who above all others led the way to that clear,
same, and balanced method of writing which it was
the especial mission of Restoration literature to
introduce. We need only compare this style with

 

10eorge Saintsbury, den, English Men of Letters
edition, LondOn: Naomillan & o., 1930, 189.

2John Churton Collins, Essay! Lug Studies, “John Dryden,”
London and Rev York: Xacmillan e 00., 1895, 87.

11

Milton's to be sensible of the enormous progress
in the direction of perspicuity and general util-
ity...the rest of the prosaists of the time are,
with few exceptions, either too pedantic or too
commonplace. Dryden is lucid, easy, familiar, yet
he can be august and splendid on occasion.

'v. P. Isr's compact two volume edition of Dryden's
essays is invaluable to the student for whom.nalone is
too often unavailable and the Scott-Saintsbury edition
is to bulky. Although.Ker admits that by his time it is
superfluous to speak in praise of Dryden, he has this to
say about his author's critical works:

Dryden's critical writings have been less dam-
aged by the lapse of time and have kept their orig-
inal freshness better than any literary discourses
which can be compared with them, even taking the
next century into consideration. He has suffered
much less from changes of literary fashion than
Addison or Dr. Johnson. Although there are many
things that are antiquated or conventional in his
discussion of literary principles, although he had
his share of the literary pedantries of his age,
there is an inexhaustible liveliness and spirit
in his essays which has given them an advantage
over many more laborious and philosOphicsl pieces
of criticism,

In American, Dryden had an admirer in James Russell
Lowell (1819-1891) who, although he condemned him ro-
mantically as not sensitive enough to be a poet, gave

his prose the praise he denied his poetry:

mwwwv' v——— r—f — v f

1Richard Garnett The £5; 2;: Dryden London: George
3911 .3: Sons, 1895, 1%.” '

2Ier, 22. gig... xiii.

12

Be, more than any other single writer, con-
tributed, as well by precept as example, to
give it English prose suppleness of movement
and the easier air of the modern world. His
own style, juicy with proverbial phrases, has
that familiar dignity, so hard to attain, per-
haps unattainable except by one who, like Dry-
den, feels that his position is assured.
Charles Cotton is as easy, but not so elegant;
‘walton as familiar, but not so flowing; Swift
as idiomatic, but not so elevated; Burk, more
splendid, but not so equally luminous.

And Barrett‘wendell said of him in 1904:

His prose style has at last, in robustly pris-
tine form, the cool lucidity and balance, which,
swiftly becoming more and more conventional,
.marked gubsequent style for more than a hundred

years.

In his excellent study of English prose style,
Herbert.Read clearly places Dryden as the founder of the
prose tradition which is still prevalent today and which
is described in Read's book:

A tradition in prose (as in poetic) style
first takes shape when a body of critical epin-
ion crystallizes around the idiomatic structure
of a language. For some time influences-~per-
sonal, imitative, even social and religious-~have
been moulding a language; a point occurs when
suddenly it is realized that these influences
have resulted in an appropriateness; in a fit
relation of sound, sense and conversational ease.
Such a moment came in English literature in the
second half of the seventeenth century, and
particularly in the person of Dryden, who has
been commonly recognized as the starting point

 

v .r ‘—

1James Russell Lowell, mpg £1 Books, Boston: Roughton,
Iifflin a 00., 1880, I, 22.

2 ,
Barrett‘wendell The Tegpgr of the Seventeenth Centur
in English Literature: lew‘Yorke cherize Scribner's 5ons,

$50.3

13'

of the main traditional style in English.............
...by Dryden's time the corporate sense had been
born; literature had become a profession, and some-
thing like professional pride was engendered.

Dryden himself was the first writer to be wholly ,
conscious of this sense, and it is a tribute to his
real greatness that he himself became its first
exemplar.

One of the most recent descriptions of Dryden's prose
as well as one of the most unexpected comes from a modern
writer of the plain tradition of English prose and one
who, like Dryden, is a playwright and a professional
writer. W. Somerset Maugham, in looking back on his life
in _;_Th_g_ W 112: decides that the time spent in his youth
studying the style of Swift, whose impeccable style grows
monotonous, might much better have been spent in a close
study of Dryden 's prose:

The prose of Dryden is delicious. It has not
the perfection of Swift nor the easy elegance of
Addison, but it has a springtime gaiety, a conver-
sational ease, a blithe spontaneousness that are
enchanting. Dryden was a very good poet, but it
is not the general Opinion that he had a lyrical
quality; it is strange that it is just this that
sings in his softly sparkling prose. Prose had
never been written in England like that before; it
has seldom been written like that since. Dryden
flourished at a happy moment. He had in his bones
the sonorous periods and the baroque massiveness
of Jacobean language and under the influence of the
nimble and well-bred felicity that he learnt from
the French he turned it into an instrument that was
fit not only for solemn themes but also to express
the light thought of the passing moment. He was
the first of the rococo artists. If Swift reminds
you of a French canal Dryden recalls an English
river winding its cheerful way round hills, through

1Herbert Read, English Prose Style, New York: Henry
3015‘ & OOe’ 1928, 205-20 e

14

quietly busy towns and by nestling villages,‘ paus-

ing now in“ a noble reach and then running powerfully

through a woodland country. It is alive, varied,
windswept; apd it has the pleasant Open-air smell

of England.

Although Dryden's prose has had the acclaim of many
critics and scholars, he is also a writer's writer. That
Haugham, who is one of today's most successful professional
writers, recognises Dryden, also a professional writer in
his age, as a prose master goes far toward proving that,
far from being a curiosity of scholars, his prose is
still useable and vigorous and truly deserving of that

over-used epithet, “timeless.”

*— —-——

1v. Somerset naugham, The mg 113, New York: Double-
day 8: Co., Inc., 1948, 27-28:—

15

III. DRYDEN'S PLACE IN
THE ENGLISH PROBE TRADITION

As Samuel Johnson has written, "A.writer who obtains
his full purpose loses himself in his own lustre. Ofan
Opinion which is no longer doubted, the evidence ceases
to be examined. Of an art universally practiced, the first
teacher is forgotten."1 Because Dryden's prose style was
successful-Jbecause it was a prose with no eccentric and
individualistic characteristics and a prose suitable for
use by the average writer for ordinary purposes-~it has
been little acclaimed. To fully recognize the service
Dryden performed, it is necessary to realize what prose
was like before he wrote and the condition of English prose
after his death.

lo workable every-day prose style standard had ever
been set up in England. It is true that there were great
writers. IBacon, Hooker, Taylor, Browne, Milton, and others
had all written great press, but it was always an individual
prose, a prose to which one can point and say, “That's
Hilton,” or ”That's Browne.“ And the average writer with-
out extraordinary genius who was just beginning to come
into his own professionally-:the essayist, the journalist,
and the hackwriter--had no pattern to follow.

#— W

1Johnson, 22. cit., 413.

16

About the middle of the Elizabethan period two
general types of prose began to develop. 0f the first type,
Saintsbury says, “Few things are more curious than this mix-
ture of homespun and tinsel, of slang and learning, of street
repartees and elaborate coterie preciousness.'1 This style,
chiefly represented by Lyly and common to most Elizabethan
pamphleteers, was the closest England had come to a standard.
It drew so much attention to the manner of expression that
the matter often seemed secondary. The other strain of
English prose was modeled on Latin and Greek.and tried to
follow with nninflected English the structural grammar of the
inflected classical languages. Endless sentences with in-
volved parenthesis, lengthly digressions, and careful quali-
fications stretched out with awkvard complication; and, again,
the meaning‘was often hepelessly lost in the attempt.

The great writers who wrote in these lines wrote good
and readable prose because they were men of great genius,
able to adapt to their personalities and arrange to meet
their needs the ponderous structures and archaic phraseology
of the time. But as the old prose masters drapped off, they
left no successors, and in the hands of less gifted writers
the prose became an impossible medium.

To show the tone of the best prose styles before Dryden,

actual samples of the styles themselves alone are adequate.

 

1George Saintsbury,W .21

S 1 tab 8;; 1820 Lo don and Toro to. J. H
a n 111’ .1- n n ' e e
ta: Sons, 1353., ’

17

{the style of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626), the out-
standing “modern' of the Elizabethan age, is delightful but
curious. Although Bacon may be classed among the writers of
the plain style rather than the ornate, his blunt, closely
packed, almost epigramatic sentences, with their tone of
authority are exceedingly individual. His style could have
been written by few besides Bacon and could say little be-
sides the things that he said:

Wisdom for a man's self is, in many branches
thereof, a depraved thing. It is the wisdom of rats,
that will be sure to leave a house somewhat before
it fall. It is the wisdom of the fox, that thrusts
out the badger, who digged and made room for him.

It is the wisdom of crocodiles, that shed tears

when they would devour. But that which is specially
to be noted is, that those which (as Cicero says of
Pompey) are sui amantes, sine rivali lovers of
themselves without a rival are many times unfortu-
nate. And whereas they have all their times sacri-
ficed to themselves, they become in the and them-
selves sacrifices to the inconstancy of fortune
whose wing?L they sought by their self-wisdom to have
pinioned.

The prose of Bacon's disciple, Thomas Hobbes (1588-
1679) is naked and mathematical. We would expect Hobbes .
to have no patience with any frills or charm, and he gives
us none. Although influenced by the tradition of medieval
scholasticism in some respects, his prose foreshadows the
efforts of the British Academy toward language reform.
Hobbes stood alone in his age with a stark plain style

 

1Francis Bacon, Works, ”0n wisdom for a Han's Self”,
edited by J. Spedding R. L. Ellis, and D. D. Heath, London:
Longnan 8: 00., 1857- 671}, VI, 86.

18

which, although too rugged for general literary purposes,

had yet the lucid, cagent quality'which.Dryden was to in-

corporate. The skeletonal structure of Hobbes' prose will
be apparent in the following:

The general use of speech, is to transfer our
mental discourse, into verbal; or the train of Our
thoughts, into a train of words; and that for two
commodities, whereof one is the registering of the
consequences of our thoughts; which being apt to
slip out of our memory, and put us to a new-labour,
,may‘be again recalled, by such‘words as they were
marked by. So that the first use of names is to
serve for “marks” or “notes” of remembrance. Another
is, when many use the same words, to signify, by
their connection and order, one to another, what
they conceive, or think of each matter; and also
what they desire, fear, or have any other passion
for. And for this use they are called ”signs."
Special uses of speech are these; first, to register,
what by cagitation, we find to be the cause of any
thing, present or past; and what'we find things
present or past may produce, or effect; which in
sum, is acquiring of arts. Secondly, to show to
others that knowledge which'we have attained, which
is, to counsel and teach one another. Thirdly, to
make known to others our wills and purposes, that
‘we may have the mutual help of one another. Pourthly,
to please and delight ourselves and others, by play-
ing‘with our words, for pleasure or ornament, innocently.

Two great stylists of Elizabethan pulpit oratory,
John Donne (1573-1631) and Lancelot Andrewes (1555el626),
must also be included in an examination of English prose
style before Dryden. Andrewes is little known today by
students of English prose. T. 8. Eliot in his essay
”Lancelot Andrewes‘l has rediscovered his literary value.

 

lThomas Hobbes, Leyiathan, "0: Speech,” London: George
Routledge e Sons, Ltd.; lew York: E. P. Dutton a 00., n.d.,

23. .

19

”His sermons are too well built to be readily quotable;
they stick too closely to the point to be entertaining.
‘Iet they rank with the finest English prose of their time,
of any time.'1 Eliot lists the most conspicuous elements
of Andrewes' style as: arrangement and structure, rele-
vant intensity, and precision in the use of words.
'Andrewes takes a word and derives the world from it;
squeezing and squeezing the word until it yields a full
juice of meaning which we should never have supposed any
word to possess."2 He gives the following as an example
of Andrewes' effort to find the exact meaning and make
that meaning live. It is a passage from the bishOp's
exposition of the text, ”That there is born unto you this
day a Saviour,'which is Christ the Lord, in the City of

David.”

‘Vho is it? Three things are said of this
Child by the Angel. (1) He is 'a Saviour'. (2)
'Vhich is Christ'. (3) 'Christ the Lord'. Three
of his titles, well and orderly inferred one of
another by good consequence. 'Re cannot miss one
of them; they be necessary all. Our method on
earth is to begin with great; in heaven they begin
with good first.

First, then, 'a Saviour'; that is His name,
Jesus, Soter; and in that Name his benefit, Salus,
'saving health or salvation.’ Such a name as the
great Orator himself saith of it, Soter, hoc guan-
Egg 2532 £33 magnum ggt_u§_latin ugg_ver53—exprimi
ggg_possit. ' is name Saviour is so great as no
one word can express the force of it.‘ '

But we are not so much to regard the ecce how
great it is, as adium what joy is in it; that is
the point we are %o speak to. And for that, men may

 

1T. 8. Eliot or Lancelot gndrewes “Lancelot
Andrewes,” London: a er a Gwyer, 92 ,’14.

21b; ., 2n—25.

And

20

talk what they'will, but sure there is no joy
in the world to the joy of a man saved; no joy
so great, no news so‘welcome, as to one ready
to perish, in case of a lost man, to hear of
one that will save him. In danger of perishing
by sickness, to hear of one will make him.well
again; by sentence of the law, of one with a
pardon to save his life; by enemies, of one that
will rescue and set him in safety. Tell any of
these, assure them but of a Saviour, it is the
best news he ever heard in his life. There is
joy in the name of a Saviour. And even this
'way, this Child is a Saviour too. zotest hoc
facere agg_hoc Egg ggt_Opus E us. is

can do but this is not.Eis wor '; a farther
matter there is, a greater salvation.He came‘
for. And it may be we need not any of these;
we are not presently sick, in no fear of the
law, in no danger of enemies. And it may be,
if we were, we fancy to ourselves to be re-
lieved some otherway. But that which He came
for , that saving we .need all; and none but He
can help us to it. ‘We have therefore all pause
to be glad for the Birth of this Saviour.

agein of the wise men coming from the East:

It was no summer progress. A.cold coming
they had of it at this time of the year, Just
the worst time of the year to take a journey,
and specially a long journey in. The ways deep,
the weather sharp, the day ysbshort, thehsun
farthest off, in aolstitio rumali 't e very
dead of winter.’

The prose of John Donne is far more emotional and

personal. Eliot suggests that he is a little of the

religious spellbinder, ”the Reverend Billy Sunday of his

time, the flesh-creeper, the sorcerer of emotional orgy.'3

 

lnide, 25’26e
21bid., 27.
3Ib1d., 20.

21

Donne's prose lacks the singleness of purpose and the
discipline that the prose of Andrewes has. It is more
conceited and sonorous and less lucid and simple. The
following is from a Christmas sermon which.Donne delivered
at St. Paul's. It shows admirably still another difference
between the two men. Andrewes is God-centered; Donna is

man-centered.

My'body is my prison; and I would be so obedi-
ant to the Law, as not to break prison; I would not
hasten my death by starving, or macerating this body:
But if this prison be burnt down by continuall feavers,
or blowen down with continuall vapours, would any man
be so in love with that ground upon which that prison
stood, as to desire rather to stay there, than to go
home? Our prisons are fallen, our bodies are dead to
many former uses; Our palate dead in a tastlesnesse;
Our stomach dead in an indigestiblenesse; our feete
dead in a lameness, and our invention in a dulnesse,
and our memory in a forgetfulnesse; and yet, as a
man that should love the ground, where his prison
stood, we love this clay, that was a body in the dayes
of our youth, and but our prison then, when it was
at best; wee abhorre the graves of our bodies; and
the body, which, in the best vigour thireof, was but
the grave of the souls, we over-love.

John Tillotson (1630-1694) was to follow these two
great preachers and to modernize their styles. He is more
akin to the ludidity of.Andrewes than the emotionalism of
Donne. But Andrewes' prose has a medieval quality about
it; Tillotson's was to join.Dryden's in becoming one of
the first examples of modern prose. Since Tillotson has
been credited with having influenced Dryden's style, his
prose will be discussed at greater length in the following
chapter.

— fir —~— “

1Donne, John, Complete Poetry and Selected Prose,
edited by John Haywood, London: Nonesuch Press; New York:
Random House, Inc., 1936, 282.

22

Sir Thomas Browne, John Milton, and Jeremy Taylor,
were the three great prose masters in the era preceding
Dryden. These three are the stylists of the heavy,
elaborate ”organ-tone” prose which Dryden was unconscious-
ly to replace.

. The prose of Browne's (1605-1682) Religio Medici,
with its carefully built sentences and its splendid ca-
dences is perhaps everything that Dryden tried not to
.make his prose. Prom it, Dryden may well have got the
title of his religious poem, but he took very little else:

There are wonders in true affection: it is a
body of Eni as, mysteries and riddles; wherein two
so become one as, they both become two. I love my
friend before my self, and yet methinks I do not
love him enough:' some few months hence my multi-
plied affection will make me believe I have not
loved him at all. 'When I am from him, I am dead
till I be with.him; when I am with him, I am not'
satisfied, but would still be nearer him. ‘United
Souls are not satisfied with imbraces, but desire
to be truly each.other; which being impossible,
their desires are infinite, and proceed without a
possibility of satisfaction. Another misery there
is in affection, that whom.we truly love like our
own selves, we forget their looks, nor can our mem-
ory retain the Idea of their faces; and it is no
wonder, for they are our selves, and our affection
makes their looks our own. This noble affection
falls not on vulgar and common constitutions, but
on such as are mark'd for virtue: he that can love
his friend with this noble ardour, will in a compe-
tent degree affect all. Now, if we can bring our
affection to look‘beyond the body and cast an
eye upon the soul, we have found the true object,
not only of friendship, but Charity; and the great-
est happiness that we can bequeath the soul, is
that we all do place our last felicity, Salvation;

23

which though it be not in our power to bestow,
it is in our charity and pious invocgtion to
desire, if not procure and further.

And for a sample of Milton's irregularly elegant ”poet's
prose“ at its most eloquent and classical best:

Truth indeed came once into the world with
her divine master, and was a shape most glorious
to look on: but when he ascended, and his apos-
tles after him were laid asleep, then straight
arose a'wicked race of deceivers, who as that
story goes of the E tian hon with his con-
spirators, how they dealtE wi he good Osiris,
took the virgin Truth, hewed her lovely form
into a thousand pieces, and scattered them to
the four winds. From.that time ever since, the
sad friends of Truth, such as dare appear, imi-
tating the careful search that Isis made for the
mangled body of Osiris, went up and down gather-
ing up limb by limb still as they could find them.
‘We have not yet found them all, Lords and Commons,
nor ever shall do, till her Master's second coming;
he shall bring tagether every joint and member,
and shall mold them into an immortal feature of
loveliness and perfection. Suffer not these
licensing prohibitions to stand at every place
of Opportunity forbidding and disturbing them
that continue seeking, that continue to do our
obsequies to the torn body of our martyred saint.
We boast our light; but if we look not wisela on
the sun itself, it smites us into darkness.

,Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) was called by Baintsbury
"perhaps the greatest ancient master of the florid and
ornate style of English Prose.” Like Browne and Hilton,
his writing is poetic in diction and harmony and his

sentences are elongated and complex.

 

W _—

1ThomasiBrowne,‘Works edited by Geoffrey Keynes,
London: Faber a Gwyer, ftd., 1928, I, 82.

2John Milton, AEGOEQEIDIOG and Other Tracts, London:
Je ne Dent & 00., 1900, 52-53. --

24

As our life is very short, so it is very
miserable; and therefore it is well it is short.
God in pity to mankind, lest his burden should
be insupportable and his nature an intolerable
load, hath reduced our state of misery to an
abbreviation; and the greater our misery is,’
the less while it is like to last; the sorrows
of a mans spirit being like ponderous weights,
which by the greatness of their burden make a
swifter motion, and descend into the grave to
rest and ease our wearied limbs; for then only
we shall sleep quietly, when those fetters are
knocked off, which not only bound our souls in
prison, but also ate the flesh till the very
bones Opened the secret garments of their carti
lages, discovering their nakedness and sorrow.
Here is no place to sit down in, but you must
rise as soon as you are set, for we have gnats
in our chambers, and worm in our gardens, and
spiders and-flies in the palaces of the greatest
kings. How few men in the world are prosperous!
‘what an infinite number of slaves and beggars,
of persecuted and Oppressed peOple, fill all
corners of the earth.with groans, and heaven 1
itself with weeping prayers and sad remnmbrances!

Few of these predecessors of Dryden were complete
masters of even their peculiarly personal medium and
practically none of the styles were versatile enough to
be used in more than one way. In almost all of them, the
writing is too artificial and eccentric or too cramped
and inelegant. .

One man, however, Abraham Cowley (1618-1667), must
be given credit for anticipating Dryden and giving a
brief sample of what was to come. Cowley wrote little
prose and seems to have achieved small credit for that

___

1Jeremy Taylor, Works, edited by Reginald Heber,
Landog: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1856, III,
2 -2 5. .

25

which he did write. Bowever,in some of his prose work,
he began on a small scale what Dryden was to build into
a prose tradition--the art of writing prose in the lan-
guage of well-bred and modern conversation. Dryden tells
us that Oowley's authority is almost sacred to him 1 and
later calls him "the darling of my youth”? but I have
been unable to find a comment of his on Oowley's prose.
This quotation, however, from Cowley's preface to his
poem published in 1656, although it shows his stronger
tendency to conceits, has much of the informal but
assured tone of the prose which Dryden was to write later:

At my return lately into England, I met by
great accident (for such I account it to be, that
any Cepy of it should be extant an where so long,
unless at his house who printed it a Book en-
tituled, Th; Iron Ag, and published under my name,
during the time of my absence. I wondred very
much how one who could be so foolish to write so
ill Verses, should yet be so fiise‘ to set them forth
as another Mans rather than his 93;; though perhaps
he might have made a better choice, and not fathered
the Bastard upon such a person, whose stock of

-Reputation is, I fear, little enough for maintenance
of his own, numerous Le itimate Off-spring of that
kinde. It would have I5een much less injurious,

if it had pleased the Author to put forth some of
my Writings under his own name, rather than his

own under mine: He had—"Seen in that a more par-
donable Plagiary, and had done less wrong by rob-
bery, then he does by such a Bounty; for no body
can be Justified by the Igputation even of anothers

 

1Ker, 93. cit., ”0f Heroic Plays,” I, 154.

2&9... ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Progress of Satire,” II, 108.

26

Merit; and our own coarse Cloathes are like to be-
come us better, then those of another mans, though
never so gighe but these, to say the truth, were
:gezeggarly, that I my self was ashamed to Egg;

In general, however, long heavy sentences, involved
with qualifications and encumbered with quotations and
conceits; trailing clauses and awkward phrases; inver-
sions, parentheses and faulty structure; clumsy classi-
cisms and inelegant vulgarisms made the old prose in the
hands of the average writer impossible at the time when
Dryden first started to write. By 1700, when he died,
the language was shaped into a sound, dignified, but
colloquial standard for Addison, Steele and the other
Queen Anne men to follow. By following this standard,
they were to fix it securely as the traditional prose
style for everyday purposes.

The Augustan age was peculiarly suited to the further
deve10pment of this type of prose. The change at the
Revolution in 1688 meant that the court with its
entourage was no longer the dominant literary audience.
Literary England in the early eighteenth century was
London, with its varied interests of politics, society,

and business. And the new audience was composed not

 

lAbraham Cowley, Essa and other Prose Vritin ,
edited by Alfred B. GouEE, Oxford: Elarendon Press, 1915,

27

only of the nobility and young wits of the town, but
also of the new statesmen, the wealthy merchants and the
rising professional men. The growing middle class, en-
riched by the growth of commerce and speculation, was
gaining in self respect and independence--and was be-
ginning to read. It was now possible for a man to
support himself by writing pamphlets, essays, and books
and the time when an author had to rely on a patron was
dying. The upper middle class was ready for a simple and
easy form of reading material, and Richard Steele (1672-
1729) provided this form in 1'2; Tatler, which was started
in 1709. It was succeeded in 1711 by 13; Spgctator to
which Joseph Addison (1672-1719) was the main contribu-
tor. These two men took the middle class under their
wing and educated them in the preprieties and niceties
of the time. The average reader of the day, who was not
himself acquainted with the classical languages, got his
neo-classicism in second-hand form from the essays of
these periodicals and others. i
Addison's prose 1. polished, harm0nious, and classi-
cally dignified. It is the more even of the two, and,
although the more correct, is certainly the duller. It
is clearly in the Dryden tradition, however, and, since
it was more easily imitatedthan Dryden's style, it did

much to reinforce the new standard:

28

I consider a human soul without education
like marble in the quarry, which shows none of
its inherent beauties, till the skill of the
polisher fetches out the colours, makes the sur-
face shine, and discovers every ornamental cloud,
spot, and vein that runs through the body of it.
Education, after the same manner, when it‘works
upon a noble mind, draws out to view every latent
virtue and perfection, which without such helps
are never to make their appearance. .

If my reader will give me leave to change
the allusion so soon upon him, I shall make use
of the same instance to illustrate the force of
education,‘which Aristotle has brought to explain
his doctrine of substantial forms, when he tells
us that a statue lies hid in a block of marble;
and that the art of the statuary only clears away
the superfluous matter and removes the rubbish.
The figure is in the stone, the sculptor only
finds it. ‘What sculpture is to a block of marble,
education is to a human soul. 1

The warmth and colloquial ease of Dryden are more
apparent in the essays of Steele, who was more original’
and spontaneous than his collaborator:

Of all the impertinent wishes which‘we hear
expressed in conversation, there is not one more
unworthy of a gentleman or a man of liberal edu-
cation than that of wishing oneself younger. I
have observed this‘wish.is usually made upon sight
of some object which gives the idea of a past
action, that it is no dishonour to us that we
cannot now repeat; or else on what was in itself
shameful when we performed it. It is a certain
sign of a foolish or a dissolute mind if we want
our youth again only for the strength of bones
and sinews which we once were masters of.

 

1 w
A. Chalmers (ed.) The British Essa ists Spectator
no. 215,” Boston: L1ttie:‘sraas‘t"6ot:'1§66:‘vxI, 336.

2Ibid., “Spectator no.153,” VII, 34.

29

Swift even more than Addison and Steele wrote for
the newly enlarged public. The latter men depended on
the upper middle class for their success; Swift wrote
for all the reading audience. His choice of language,
style, and illustration was constantly directed to reach
the most ordinary reader.

”Dryden was Addison's master,” writes Saintsbury,
"and there can be little doubt that he acted in the same
capacity, though in a different fashion, to ungrateful
'cousin Swiftt! 1 ‘where Addison elaborated and ”corrected“
Dryden's prose, Swift tightened and pared it. Swift's '
naturalness and lack of affectation remind one of Dryden;
Addison was more formal. But Dryden has little of'Swift's
terseness. There are unnecessary words in Dryden and
easy luxuriant clauses. Swift's style is stripped of
all unnecessary appendages. Dryden is undoubtedly
England's greatest verse satirist. Swift is her great-
est prose satirist, and Addison, for all his gentlemanly
manners, is a master of subtle irony. Addison might be
said to have given manners to the satiric element in
Dryden; Swift, on the other hand, turned Dryden's dig-
nified aloof style of mockery into bitter and brutal

VERDE:

v v Viv ‘—

1George Saintsbury, Alfiistory of Engligh ggose Rh thm,
London: Macmillan a Co., Ltd., 1912, 2 9.

......

30

As to learning, government, arts, manufac-
tures, and the like, my master confessed he could
find little or no resemblance between the Xahoos
of that country and those in ours; for he only
meant to observe what parity there was in our
natures. He had heard, indeed, some curious
gouyhnhgmg observe, that in most herds there was
a sort of ruling'xahoo, (as amongst us there is
generally some leading or principal stag in a
park,) who was always more deformed in body and
mischievous in disposition than any of the rest;
that this leader had usually a favourite as like
himself as he could get, whose employment was to
lick his master's feet and posteriors and drive
the females to his kennel; for which he‘was
now and then rewarded with a piece of ass's flesh.
This favourite is hated by the whole herd, and
therefore, to protect himself, keeps always near
the person of his leader. He usually continues
in office till a worse can be found; but the
very moment he is discarded, his successor, at
the head of all the'Xahoos in that district,
young and old, male and female, come in a body,
and discharge their excrements upon him from
head to foot. But how far this might be appli-
cable to our courts, and favourites, and ministers
of state, my master said I could best determine.

I durst make no return to this malicious
insinuation, which debased human understanding
below the sagacity of a common hound, who has
judgment enough to distinguish and follow the
cry of the ableit dag in the pack, without being
ever mistaken.

Swift is not always so vitrolic, however. The
following, in which he is making fun of Dryden's numer-

ous dedications of the Aeneis, has more the tone of

that master's:

I confess to have been somewhat liberal in
the business of titles, having Observed the humour
of multiplying them.to bear great vogue among
certain writers whom I exceedingly reverence.

And indeed it seems notunreasonable that books,

A-

lJonathan Swift, selected Works, edited by D. Laing
Purves, Edinburgh: 'Hilliam P. limmo, 1872, 203~204.

31

the children of the brain, should have the honour
to be christened with variety of names, as well
as other infants of quality. Our famous Dryden
has ventured to proceed a point farther, endea-
vouring to introduce also a multiplicity of god-
fathers; which is an improvement of much more
advantage upon a very Obvious account. It is a
pity this admirable invention has not been
better cultivated, so as to grow by this time in-
to general imitation, when such an authority serves
it for a precedent. Nor have my endeavours been
wanting to second so useful an example; but it
seems there is an unhappy expense usually an-
nexed to the calling of a godfather, which was
clearly out of my head, as it is very reason-
able to believe. ‘Where the pinch lay, I can-
not certainly affirm; but having employed a
world of thoughts and pains to split my treatise
into forty sections, and having entreated forty
lords of my acquaintance that they would do me
the honour to stand, they all made it a matter

of conscience, and sent me their excuses.

Daniel Defoe (1659-1731) wrote even more for the
mass of common readers than did Swift. A journalist
of Grub Street, he was a man of little education and
had not been bred in the nee-classical idea of the
gentleman. Uninterested in bellgg_;ettres, he wrote
for the day, and for the greatest interest of the yeat-
est number of the day. Of all the great writers of the
Augustan age, Defoe is almost the only one that can be
termed an unpolished writer. The perfect strength and
shmplicity of Swift were definitely studied. The same
qualities in Defoe, although less perfect, appear to be

 

1Ib1d., ”Introduction to A Tale of a Tub,“ 60.

32

completely natural. Hints in his English.Men of Letters
edition quotes Defoe's definition of a good writer, taken
from a prospectus for a new weekly, The Universal Specta-
tgg, which was being started by his son-in-law. It will
be noticed that the idea of correctness and propriety
does not enter in. Defoe gives us a journalist's, not

a stylist's, definition:

Now whatever may be the lot of this paper,
be that as common fame shall direct, yet without
entering into the enquiry who writes better, or
who writes worse, I shall lay down one specific,
by which you that read shall impartially deter-
mine who are, or are not, to be called good writers.
In a word, the character of a good writer, wherever
he is to be found, is this, viz., that he writes
so as to please and serve at the same time.

If he writes to please, and not to serve, he
is a flatterer and a hypocrite; if to serve and
not to please, he turns cynic and satirist. The
first deals in smooth falsehood, the last in
rough scandal; the last may do some good, though
little; the first does no good, and may do mis-
chief, not a little; the last provokes your rage,
the first provokes your pride; and in a word
either of them is hurtful rather than useful.
But the writer that strives to be useful, writes
to serve you, and at the same time, by an im-
perceptible art, draws you on to be pleased also.
He represents truth with plainness, virtue with
praise; he even reprehends with a softness that
carries the force of a satire without the salt
of it; and he insensibly screws himself into
your good Opinion, that as his writings merit
your regard, so they fail not to obtain it.

This is part of the character by which I
define a good writer; I say 'tis but part of
it, for it is not a half sheet that would con-
tain the full description; a large volume would
hardly suffice. His fame requires, indeed, a
very good writer to give it due praise; and for
that reason (and a good reason too) I go no
farther with it. 1

 

1
Quoted in‘Villiam Minto Daniel De oe, English Men
of Letters edition, New Yorkz’ r—arper +d: ros., 1926, 129.

33

From the ornate rhythms of Milton, Browne and
Taylor to the well-bred conversation of Addison and
Steele and the simple vitality of Swift and Defoe is
a huge step indeed. The element that was largely re-
spons ible for this change was the prose of John Dryden.

3#

IV. SOWRCES 0F DRYDEN'S EROSE STYLE AND
INFLUENCES ON IT

The influences that go into the develOpment and
molding of a prose style are diverse and subtle. Indeed
all the direct and indirect sources of a prose style can
never be discovered. And in a writer like Dryden, whose
personality and temperament were so typically those of
his time, the elements that influence his prose style
must include those tendencies current in the England of
his age as well as his varied individual interests.

The restoration in 1660 brought a return to normalcy
after the tumult and exhaustion of the revolution. A
spirit of order, sobriety and clearness took the place
of the chaos of the Commonwealth years. The individual-
ism of the former age gave way to a desire for uniformity
and regularity, and reason took the place of emotion in
the personality of the age.

This desire for order and uniformity showed itself
in the changing attitude toward language. Men now had
time to concentrate on how ideas were said rather than
on the ideas themselves. The ”new science" of Bacon and
the Royal Society insisted on a plainer style adaptable
to the new philosophy. The pulpit, aroused by religious

controversy and to the necessity of reaching the people,

35

called for reform from the fantastic conceits and ornate
language of the preéflestoration preachers. The court,
now restored to its former interest in the arts and re-
finement, needed a well-bred and dignified, but lively
style suited to the ”idea of a gentleman.” After the
insularity of the Puritan regime, society was becoming
continentally minded and the expatriated Englishmen re-
turning from.France brought with them the ideas of the
Golden Age of French literature.

That Dryden was influenced by all of these tendencies
cannot be denied. A literary man living in the London
of the time with his diversified interests could not

escape them.

The New Science

The continual insistence of the new science for a
plainer style starts with the originator of the new
science himself. Francis Bacon, although the writer of
a prose very different tron that advocated by the scientists,
shows near the beginning of the gagg§,Instauration an
attitude toward language which is essentially the same
as that advocated by his followers:

It being part of my design to set everything

forth, as far as it may be, plainly and per-

spicuously (for nakedness of the mind is still,
as nakedness of the body once was, the companion

36

of innocence and simplicity) let me fifst ex-
plain the order and plan of the work.

John Wilkins, who later became one of the founders
of the Royal Society, in his Ecclesiastes, 93,3 Discourse
Concerning the gift 2; Preaching (1646) again raised a
plea for a plain style. This was followed by Hobbes'
Leyiathan (1651) and Robert Boyle's Considerations
Touching Egg Stylg g; 522 32;: Scriptures (written about
1653, published 1663). Again and again the new scien-
tists criticised the traditional philosOphy for being
concerned only with.words having no concrete actuality
and representing only figments of the imagination.
Figurative language and the more subtle effects of
imaginative expression had no place in the new philo-
sophy. All this led to the pressure for a direct un-
adorned style, concrete in idea and clear and economical
in eXpression.

There seems to be much controversy among scholars
about Dryden's place in the Royal Society‘which.was
chartered in 1662. His first biographer, Andrew Keppis,
in the Bioggaphia Brittannica2 published in 1793, gives
him full credit for being a member in faith as well as

1 , . .

Quoted in Richard F. Jones, 'Science and English
Prose in the Third Quarter of the Seventeenth Century,"
PMLA, ILV, 977. .

2Cited in Claude Lloyd, ”John Dryden and the Royal
Society," RMLA, ILV, 967. . .

37

in name of this organization of the new science, and
most of his other biographers, including Scott and
Malone, follow Keppis' lead. Bredvold in an article
on the question has this to say:

There can be no doubt of Dryden's real appreci-

ation of the new science. ...He was interested

in the Royal Society, understood its spirit, and

recOgnized that he was like-minded with it.

Claude Lloyd, however, in an article published in
the Eublications pf thegpde;g_Langgage Society in 1930
states that Dryden's interest in science has been much
over-rated and offers substantial proofs in support of
this thesis. Oxford, not Cambridge, was the center of
the scientific movement under the leadership of John
‘Wilkins,‘warden of‘wadham College; and Dryden was a
Cambridge man. ”During his sojourn there the Cambridge
Platonists were develOping‘what was felt to be the
philosOphical equivalent of the scientific activities
at Oxford; but there seems to have been no encouragement
of "natural" philosophy or little interest in it.” 2

Lloyd refutes the claim of scholars that Dryden was
elected to the Society before he had won any notice by

his writings and on the basis of his interest in science

 

1Louis I. Bredvold, ”Dryden, Hobbes and the Royal
Society,” Mod. Phil., XXV, 435,438.

2L1Oyd, 92. git. , 97o.

38

alone by citing ”Heroic Stanzas,” published twice in
1659; "Astraea Redux,” 1660; Dryden's tribute ”To my
Honor'd Friend Sir Robert Howard, on his Excellent Poems,”
1660; his second poem to the king on his coronation in I
1661; and a poem.presented to Clarendon, as Lord Chancel-
lor, on New Year's 1662. ”It is likely, therefore,”
writes Lloyd, ”that Dryden's reputation as a poet was his
main recommendation to the scientists who sought a cosmo-
politan following.” 1

Lloyd then goes on to prove by citations from Thomas
Birch 's History 2 that Dryden, who was elected November
19, 1662 and admitted November 26, 1662 under the pro-
visions of the first charter, was, under the stricter
organization of the second charter adapted in April, 1663,
continually in arrears. On February 26, 1666, Dryden was
one of eight commoners (including‘waller) who was, by
resolution of the assembly, to receive a notice of his
dues and be asked to pay the same. (”Some of the delin-
quents apparently sent word that they preferred to be
drapped from the society rather than pay their arrears;
for at the July 4 meeting, it was ordered, 'that the Lord
Lucas, Sir John Denham, Dr. Scarburgh, Mr. Dryden, and

1_I_b_;_i_9_., 971.

2Thomas Birch, 293 history 2; the ggygl Society of

London £2;,Im, ovi Natpgal Knowledg§.,, London: 17§6.
'(‘c’i'te'a in {JET—glow g " ' ’ '

39

Mr. Vermuyden be left out of the account of the arrears'.”]-
And in the report of a committee appointed to audit the
treasurer's accounts, November 16,1667, Dryden is

found creSitOr by the following item:

By arrears of such persons, as have been omit-
ted by order of the council dated October 29,

1666, viz:

l. s.
Lord Lucas 2
Sir John Denham l 15
Dr. Scarburgh 11 18
II. Dryden 9 19
hr. vermuyden 11 15
Mr. Schroter 9 15 2

Lloyd then does the following bit of arithmetic:

From the time of Dryden's admission, Novem-
ber 26,1662, until the date named in the order
for collecting arrears, December 23, 1665, his
name had been on the roster of the Society for
three years and twenty-seven days. His dues of
one shilling a week for this period and his ad-
mission fee of forty shillings would amount to
a little less than ten pounds. It appears,
therefore, from the treasurer's charge of nine
pounds and nineteen shillings ageinst him that
he had paid neither weekly dues nor admission
fee. Sprat's Histor , which appeared toward
the end of 1667, carries a list of the members
of the Society, and in this list Dryden's name
does not appear. 3

Hr. Lloyd's fourth proof is that at a time when
the wits of the day were beginning to find the virtuosi

a convenient object for satire, Dryden's own numerous

_._.*

1L1°Fdi° '- 21:... 97¢.
2.11919." 975 (Cited as. "Birch II, 213»).
3.32.1.9... 975.

40

satirists never raised that cry against him. Nor did
Dryden ever defend science and the Royal Society against
any of their critics, although in ”Mac Flecknoe” he
does not neglect Shadwell's play, Thg‘Virtuoso, in other
respects. Lloyd concludes:
Dryden, it is clear, did not associate him-
self with the Society; and few, if any, outside
the Society itself knew that he had ever had any
connection with it. There is little need, there-
fore, to attempt to reconcile Dryden's ”scientific”
beliefs with those of the scientists of his day.1
An even more convincing argument that Dryden did
not adhere to the principles of the new science appears
in his own writings, especially in his poetry, but also
in his prose. In his use of figures and images, Dryden
seems to prefer the old science, although he does not
exclude the teachings of the new when they can be made
into a colorful figure. His adherence to the classical
and scholastic also marks him.as a not-too-zealous
follower of’Bacon, if indeed a follower at all. On the
other hand, 'Annus nirabilus' and the preface justifying
its use of technical language follow the scientists'
attitude toward the use of technical terms.
We may assume, therefore, that, although Dryden

once ”dabbled” in the new science, he never took up its

 

1Ibid., 976.

41

cause to proclaim. The influence of science on the
writings of Dryden has been over-emphasized by some
scholars. Since the new scientific ideas were an im-
portant part of the age, Dryden could not have failed

to assimilate some of them. However, he showed them

no particular partiality. He used the gifts of the

new science as they suited him and mixed them impartially
with many of the things the science itself despised.

Movements toward a British Academy

‘with one of the fruits of the new scientific age,
however, Dryden was more closely and enthusiastically
connected. The English language was beginning to come
into its own. Latin was more and more being replaced
by English, and, after the Restoration, classes in the
reading the writing of English, as well as other subjects,
were slowly fighting their way into the traditional Latin
grammar schools. Dryden himself indirectly commends
this practice in the ”Preface to Sylvae in 1685:

There are many who understand Greek and
Latin and yet are ignorant of their mother-
tongue. The preprieties and delicacies of the
English are known to few; 'tis impossible even
for a good wit to understand and practice them,
without the help of a liberal education, long
reading, and digesting of those few good authors
we have amongst us, the knowing of men and manners,
the freedom of conversation with the best com-
pany of both sexes; and, in short,‘without'wearing
off the rust which he contracted while he was
laying in a stock of learning. Thus difficult
it is to understand the purity of English, and

#2

critically to discern not only good writers
from bad, and a preper style from a corrupt,
but also to distinguish that which is pure in
a good author, from that which is vicious and
corrupt in him.

And again, in 1697, when condemning Cowley for his violent
metaphors and impure language, Dryden writes:

But at the same time I must excuse him; for

through the iniquity of the times he was forced

to travel, at an age when, instead of learning

foreign languages, he should have studied the

beauties of his mother-tongue, which, like all

other speeches, is to be cultivated early, or

we shall never write it with any kind of elegance. 2

‘Vith this new emphasis on English, the rationalistic
spirit of the age turned on the language and found it
disorganized, unsystematic and incorrect, which was
exactly the way Dryden found it:

In the age of that poet Aeschylus , the Greek

tongue was arrived to its full perfection; they

had then amongst them an exact standard of

writing and of speaking: the English language

is not capable of such a certainty; and we are

at present so far from it, that we are wanting

in the very foundation of it, a perfect grammar. 3

Early treatises on English grammar had been writ-
ten, to be sure, but these works had been generally
written for foreigners learning the language or for stu-
dents seeking a basis for the study of Latin grammar.

In 1653, John‘wallis, using the inductive principles of

 

lxer, 22. cit., I, 253.
2Ibid., "The Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 229.
31bid., *Preface to Troilus and Cressida,” I, 202-203.

"3

the new science, recorded the results of his own observa-
tion of actual English usage in his Grammatica Linggae
Anglicanae, and the Royal Society's John'wilkins, in 1668,
sapgicgl Langgage in which he included a section called
”Natural Grammar“ with logical terms in place of the
traditional terms of Latin grammar.

By far the most outstanding attempts to control,
correct, and standardize the language were the efforts
to establish a British Academy. It was natural that an
Academy should be prOposed at this time. The temper of
the age was authoritarian and academic. The French
Academy had been founded by Richelieu in 1635 ”to labor
with all possible care and diligence to give definite
rules to our language, and to render it pure, eloquent,
and capable of treating the arts and sciences.” 1 The
history of the French Academy appeared in English in
1657, and with the Restoration, Charles brought a strong
French influence.

It was natural, too, that the newly-established
Royal Society should father the attempt. Thomas Sprat
in his History 9; the 3319; Societ , which was published
in 1667 and which itself was one of the first steps in

 

1Quoted from the statutes defining its purpose in

Albert C. Baugh, A History 93.: 3g; English M555, New
‘York: Appleton-Centuryrcrofts, Inc., 1935, 32_. _

4n

the Restoration revolt against ornate prose, set forth
the attitude and habits of the Society in language:

Thus they have directed, judg'd, conjectur'd
upon, and improved Experiments. But lastly, in
these, and all other businesses, that have come
under their care; there is one thing.more, about
which the Societ has been most sollicitous; and
that is, the manner of their Discourse: which, un-
less they had been very watchful to keep in due
temper, the whole spirit and vigour of their 2g:
sign, had been soon eaten out, by the luxury and
redundance of speech. The ill effects of this
superfluity of talking have already overwhelm'd
most other Arts and Professions; insomuch, that
when I consider the means of Happy livin , and
the causes of their corruption, I can dly
forbear recanting what I said before; and con-
cluding, that eloguence ought to be banish'd
out of civil Societies, as a thing fatal to Peace
and good Manners. To this opinion I should wholly
incline; if I did not find, that it is a‘Weapon,
which may be easily procur'd by b§g_men, as good:
and that, if these should onely cast it away, and
those retain it; the naked Innocence of vertue,
would be upon all occasions expos'd to the armed
Malice of the‘wicked. This is the chief reason,
that should now keep up the Ornaments of speak-
ing, in any request: since they are so much de-
generated from their original usefulness. They
were at first, no doubt, an admirable Instrument
in the hands of”Wise gen: when they were onely
employ'd to describe Goodness, Honesty, Obedience:
in larger, fairer, and more moving Images: to
represent Truth, cloth'd with.Bodies; and to bring
Knowledge back again to our very senses, from
whence it was't first deriv'd to our understand-
ings. ,But now they are generally chang'd to
worse uses: They make the Eancy disgust the best
things, if they some sound and unadorn'd: They
are in Open difiance against reason; professing,
not to hold much correspondence with that; but
with its Slaves, the Passions: they give the mind
a motion too changeable, and bewitching, to con-
sist with right practice. ‘Hho can behold, without

the

45

indignation, how many mists and uncertainties,

these spacious Tropes and Figurpp have brought
on our knowledg?

.At a meeting of the Society on December 7, 1664,

vote of the group reads:

It being suggest that there were persons of
the Society whose genius was very proper and in-‘
clined to improve the English tongue, and particu-
larly for philosOphical purposes, it was voted
that there should be a committee for improving the
English language; and that they meet at Sir Peter
'wyche's lodgings in Grays Inn once or twice a
month, and give an account of their proceedings
when called upon. The persons following or any
three or more of them, were nominated to consti-
tute the committee: Mr. Aershire, Sir Robert
Atkins, Mr. Austen, Sir John Birkenhead, Dr.
Clarke, Dr. Crowns, Mr. Dryden, Mr. Ellise, Mr.
Evelyn, Sir John Finch, Mr. Godolphin, Mr. Hen-
shaw, Mr. Hoskins, Mr. Neile, Sir Thomas Notte,
Mr. Sprat, Mr. Southwell, Sir Samuel Tuke, Mr.
waller, Mr. Williamson, Mr. Matthew‘Wren. It
was ordered that this committee at their first
meeting choose a chairman out of their number.

It was perhaps this committee to which John Evelyn

referred in his letter of August 12, 1689 to Samuel

Pepys, allowances being made for Evelyn's memory by the

lapse of time:

And indeed such was one designed since the res-
toration of Charles the Second (1665), and in
order to it three or four meetings were begun
at.Gray's Inn, by Mr. Cowley, Dr. Sprat, Mr.
waller, the Duke of'Buckingham, Matt. Clifford,
Mr. Dryden, and some other promoters of it.

But by the death of the incomparable Mr. Cowley,

1Thomas Sprat, History pf the Royal Society pg London,

edition 3, London: 8. Chapman, 1728, 111-113.

2Birch, pp. cit., I, #99 quoted in 0. F. Emerson,

”John.Dryden and a British.Academy," Proceedings p; the

19

British.Academy,iLondon: Oxford University Press, 1921-

:x: 7°.

46

distance and inconvenience of the place, the
contagion, and other circumstances intervening,
it crumbled away and came to nothing.

Evelyn has given us another clue to this brief and
mysterious embryo of an Academy. He was unable to attend
the meetings at ”Peter'Wyche's Lodgings,” and in a letter,
to his host explaining the situation he has included his
ambitious proposals of the work the committee was to do:

I conceive the reason both of additions to,
and the corruption of the English language, as of
most other tongues, has proceeded from the same
causes; namely from victories, plantations, fron-
tiers, staples of commerce, pedantry of schools,
affectation of travellers, translations, fancy
and style of Court, vernility and mincing of cit-
izens, pulpits, political remonstrances, theatres,
shape , sec.

The parts affected with it we find to be the
accent, analOgy, direct interpretation, trOpes,
phrases, and the like.

1. I would therefore humbly prOpose that there
might first be compiled a Grammar...

2. That with this a more certain OrthOgraphy were
introduced, as by leaving out superfluous letters,
&c.: such as o in woomen, peOple; u in honour; a
in reproach, ugh in though &c.

3. That there might be invented some new periods,
and accents, besides such as our grammarians and
critics use, to assist, inspirit, and modify our
ronunciation of sentences...

. To this might follow a Lexicon or collection
of all the pure English words by themselves; then
those which are derivation from others, with their
prime, certain and natural signification; then,
the symbolical: so as no innovation might be used
or favoured, at least till there should arise some
necessity of providing a new edition, and of ampli-
fying the old upon mature advice.

1John Evelyn, Diary and Corres ondence, edited by
William Bray, London: GeorgeRoutled e 8: sons, Ltd.;
Hew‘York: E. P. Dutton & Co., n.d., 85-686. _

47

5. That in order to this, some were appointed to
collect all the technical words...

6. That things difficult to be translated or
expressed, and such as are as it were, incommen-
surable one to another: as determinations of
weights and measures, coins, honours, national
habits, arms, dishes, drinks, municipal consti-
tutions of courts; old and abrOgated customs, &c.
were better interpreted than as yet we find them...
7. That a full catalOgue of exotic words, such
as are daily minted by our Lagodaedali, were ex-
hibited, and that it were resolved on what should
be sufficient to render them current...

8. Previous to this it would be inquired what
particular dialects, idioms, and proverbs are

in use in every several county of England...

9. And happily it were not amiss, that we had

a collection of the most quaint and courtly ex-
pressions...for we are infinitely defective as

to civil addresses, excuses and forms u on sud-
den and unpremeditated (though ordinary encounters...
10. And since there is likewise a manifest
rotation and circling of words‘which go in and
out like the mode and fashion, books should be
consulted for the reduction of some of the old
laid-aside words and expressions...

11. Something might likewise be well translated
out of the best orators and poets, Greek and
Latin, and even out of the modern languages;

that so some judgment might be made concerning
the elegancy of the style, and a laudable and
unaffected imitation of the best recommended to
writers.

12. Finally, there must be a stock of reputa-
tion gained by some public writings and composi-
tions of the Members of this Assembly...and if
the design were arrived thus far, I conceive a
very small matter would dispatch the art of
rhetoric, which the French proposed as one of

the first things they recommended to their late
academicians.

Professor Emerson feels that without question this

attempt of the Royal Society to start a nucleus for a

 

1Ibid., 611.

48

British Academy can be attributed to John Dryden. He
suggests that, since Dryden was a member of the Royal
Society as early as November 26, 1662, it may be that
he was the first to mention, in conversation with his
fellow members, the idea of a British Academy. He
further maintains that Heller was the only other name
nominated who might fulfill the Academy's words of
”genius...very proper and inclined to improve the
English language'' and shows that Waller was in arrears
for dues, pleading that ”he, being perpetually in Parli-
ament, had never been able to attend the Society, either

" 1 Waller

to serve them or receive any advantage thereby.
managed, however, if we are to believe Evelyn, to attend
the meetings at Gray's Inn, and Evelyn and Sprat have
both been shown to be intensely interested in the prob-
lem of language. 2
Emerson 's other proofs are that Dryden had already
suggested the British Academy, that he was, throughout
his life an avowed believer in improving English by some
such means, and that he was in other respects strongly

under French influence .

 

48 lBiroh, 22. cit., IV, 130, quoted by Emerson, pp. cit.,

2Eiserson himself has shown us ”almost conclusive proof“
that the part of Sprat's His tor which contained his plea
for simple language “mus t. have geen written and probably
printed before December, 1664.” 52.

49

Although all these are strong arguments, I do not
feel that they prove conclusively that Dryden was the
one moving power behind this gesture of the Royal Society.

It is certain, however, that Dryden was intensely
interested and that he never quite gave up the hOpe of
a society to aid him in his task of standardization.

In his "Dedication to the Rival Ladies” he first men-
tions the idea, and this is the suggestion that Emerson
cites. Thpjgiy§l_Lpgipp_was entered on the Stationer's
Books (according to.Malone) June 5, 1664 and probably
published shortly after. an. Royal Society's move did
not come until December 7, 1664.

I know not whether I have been so careful of the
plot and language as I ought; but, for the latter,
I have endeavoured to write English, as near as

I could distinguish it from the tongue of pedants,
and that of affected travellers. Only I am sorry,
that (speaking so noble a language as we do) we
have not a more certain measure of it, as they
have in France, where they have an Academy erect-
ed for that purpose, and endowed with large privi-
leges by the present king. I wish we might at
length leave to borrow words from other nations,
which is now a wantoness in us, not a necessity;
but so long as some affect to speak them, there
will not want others, who will have the boldness
to write them. 7

The quotation lamenting a perfect grammar has al-

ready been given above. Two clearer references to the

 

1181', 22. 9.1.1.5.".I’IS’

50

Academy idea occur toward the end of Dryden's life in
1693:

I might descend also the mechanic beauties of 1
heroic verse; but we have yet no English Prosodia,
not so much as a tolerable dictionary, or a gram-
mar; so that our language is in a manner barbarous;
and what government will encourage any one, or
Amore, who are capable of refining it, I know not:
but nothing under a public expense can go through
with it. And I rather fear a declination of lan-
guage, thaB hOpe an advancement of it in the pre-
sent age.

The second 1693 passage repeats this dire warning:
For after all, our language is both copious,
significant, and majestical, and might be re-
duced into a more harmonious sound. But for want
of public encouragement in this Iron Age, we are
so far from making any prOgress in the improve-
ment of our tongue, that in few years we shall
speak and write as barbarously as our neighbors. 3
Perhaps once more, at least, he had a chance to work
toward the fulfillment of his dream. ‘wentworth Dillon,
the Earl of Roscommon, evidently formed or planned a
society for refining the language and fixing its stan-
dard. The date of this venture is not known. Fenton's

note on‘Waller's poem "Upon the Earl of'Roscommon's

 

1In the ”Dedication of the Aeneis' (1697) Dryden tells
us, ”I have long had by me the materials of an English
[posodia, containing all the mechanical rules of versifica-
tion, wherein I have treated, with some exactness, of the
feet, the quantities, and the pauses.” Ker, II, 217. This
has never been found. See R. D. Jameson, "Notes on Dryden's
Lost Prosodia,” 59g, Phil., xx, 2%1-253. Perhaps in the
1693 passage Dryden was angling for a commission for what
he had already completed.

axer, pp, cit., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original
and Progress of Satire,“ II, 110.

3Ibid., ”Dedication of Examen Poeticum," 12.

51

Translation of Horace” says it occurred during the last
years of Roscommon's life,1 and Roscommon died in 1684.
Most of Dryden's biOgraphers have felt that Dryden was
the principal assistant in this design. Religious dif-
ficulties and Roscommon's death seem to have defeated
the venture.

Thus we see that from almost the date of his first
prose writing until near the end of his life, Dryden
clung to the idea of a society, chartered by the govern-
ment to improve and regulate the English language.

The Restoration Pulpit

The great preachers of the Restoration were also
turning from the style of Donne and Taylor. An age of
such intense and violent religious controversy was not
an age to spin laborious theological conceits in sono-
rous music. And many of the prominent preachers were
men who were not adverse to the new philosOphy and who
adopted its language with its ideas. Thomas Sprat, the
famous historian of the Royal Society was at one time
chaplain to Buckingham and was to become Bishop of
Rochester. Also the Royal Society's was JohnfiWilkins

 

lEmerson, pp. cit., 52.

52

who in 1646 in his Ecclesiastes, pp p Discopgse Concern-
ipg pp; egg; 2£_Preaching had this to say to his fellows
in the ministry of the "phrase” that should be used in
preaching:

Itmmst be plain and naturall, not being darkned
with the affection of Scholasticall harshnesse,

or Rhetoricall flourishes. Obscurity in the
discourse is an argument of ignorance in the minds.
The greatest learning is to be seen in the great-
est plainnesse... . 'When the notion is good, the
best way to set it off, is in the most obvious
plain expression... . And it will not become

the Majesty of a Divine Embassage, to be garnished
out with flaunting affected eloquence. How un-
suitable it is to the expectation of a hungry
soul, who comes unto this ordinance with a desire
of spiritual comfort and instruction and there to
hear onely a starched speech full of puerile
worded Rhetorick? 'Tis a sign of low thoughts

and designs, when a mans chief study is about

the polishing of his phrase and words. Such a

one speaks onely from his mouth, and not from

his heart. 1

Perhaps the most famous preacher of Dryden's time,
however, at least to later ages, was John Tillotson who
was to become Archbishop of Canterbury. Dryden's friend,
Congreve, has been the cause of much scholarly confusion
because of one sentence in his dedication to Dryden's
Drfltic m in 1717: ”I have heard him [Dryden]
frequently own with Pleasure, that if he had any Talent
for English Prose, it was owning to his having often
read the writings of the great Archbishop Tillotson.“ 2

 

1Quoted in Jones, 2p, pi§,, 979-980.

2Quoted in David Nichol Smith, John Dr den, Cambridge:
The University Press, 1950, 87.

53

The majority of critics dismiss this as a manifest and
generous exaggeration. Tillotson was born in 1630;
Dryden, in 1631, and at the time when Dryden was writing
good prose, Tillotson had not written a great deal and
was not particularly famous.

Francis Christensen, however, in an article published
in 19u6 1 offers an interesting possibility. He points
out, as Tilley had done, 2 that in the "Dedication of the
Rival Ladies” and the early part of the "Essay of Dramatic
Poesy," Dryden's management of clauses is still somewhat
uncertain, but that when.Neander (Dryden) joins the discus—
sion, we recognize our first master of modern English prose.
Christensen suggests that, if’Dryden learned to write prose
from the study of Tillotson's writings, he may have hap-
pened on a cOpy of the preacher's sermon, "The‘Wisdom of
Being Religious" (166A) while he was in the country writing
the essay and that this may have been responsible for the
change in style.

It is obvious that the style of the first part of the
essay is different from that used when Neander begins to

speak. ‘We find Crites (Howard) speaking as follows:

Is it not evident, in these last hundred
years (when the study of philosophy has been the
business of all the Virtuosi in Christendom), that

—Y T- w —- V— .—f ' __—

1Francis Christensen, ”John‘Wilkins and the Royal
Society Regorm of Prose Style," Modern.Language Quarterly,
VII, 179'1 7.

2A..A. Tilley, Cambridge History gi'English.Literature,
Cambridge: University Press; New York: Macmillan & Co.,
1912, VIII, 370 .

And

54

almost a new Nature has been revealed to us?--
that more errors of the school have been de-
tected, more useful experiments in philosophy
have been made, more noble secrets in Optics,
medicine, anatomy, astronomy, discovered, than
in all those credulous and doting ages from
Aristotle to us?--so true it is, that nothing
spreads more fast than science, when rightly
and generally cultivated.

Add to this, the more than common emula-
tion that was in those times of writing well;
which though it be found in all ages and all
persons that pretend to the same reputation,
yet Poesy, being then in more esteem than now
it is, had greater honours decreed to the pro-
fessors of it, and consequently the rivalship
was more high between them; they had judges
ordained to decide their merit, and prizes to
reward it; and historians have been diligent to
record of Eschylus, Euripides, Saphocles,
Lchphron, and the rest of them, both who they
were that vanquished in these wars of the
theatre, and how often they were crowned: while
the Asian kings and Grecian commonwealths scarce
afforded them a nobler subject than the un-
manly luxuries of a debauched court, or giddy
intrigues of a factions city.

Eugenius (Buckhurs t) s peaks :

I have observed in your speech, that the
former part of it is convincing as to what
the Moderns have profited by the rules of the
Ancients; but in the letter you are careful to
conceal how much they have excelled them; ‘we
own all the helps we have from them, and want
neither veneration nor gratitude while we ac-
knowledge that to overcome them we Imst make
use of the advantages we have received from
them: but to these assistances we have joined
our own identity; for had we sat down with a
dull imitation of them, we might then have lost
somewhat of the old perfection, but never ac-
quired any that was new; 'we draw not therefore
after their lines, but those of Nature; and

 

1Ker, 92. cit., I, 37.

55

having the life before us, besides the experi-
ence of all they knew, it is no wonder if we

hit some airs and features which they have missed.
I deny not what you urge of arts and sciences,
that they have flourished in some ages more than
others; but your instance in philosOphy makes
for me: for if natural causes be more known now
than in the time of Aristotle, because more
studied, it follows that poesy and other arts
may, with the same pains, arrive still nearer

to perfection; and, that granted, it will rest
for you to prove that they wrought more perfect
images of human life than we;'which seeing in
your discourse you have avoided to make good,

it shall now be my task to show you some part

of their defeits, and some few excellencies of
the Moderns.

This air of polite studied argument, with its slow
moving sentences, formal diction and awkwardly complex
clauses is definitely not Dryden's usual style. Neander's
sentences move more quickly and are more informal. .His
speeches seem much more direct and personal, and we seem
to hear the living man when he speaks:

As for his other argument, that by pursuing
one single theme they gain an advantage to ex-
press and work up the passions, I wish any ex-
ample he could bring from them would make it
good; for I confess their verses are to me the
coldest I have ever read. Neither, indeed, is
it possible for them, in the way they take, so
to express passion, as that the effects of it
should appear in the concernment of the audience,
their speeches being so many declamations, which
tire us with the length; so that instead of per-
suading us to grieve for their imaginary heroes,
we are concerned for our own trouble, as we are
in the tedious visits of bad company: we are
in pain till they are gone. When the French
stage came to be reformed by Cardinal Richelieu,
those long harangues were introduced, to comply

1Ibid., 4#.

56

with the gravity of a churchmen. Look upon
Cinna and the 292MB they are not so prOperly
to be called plays, as long discourses of
reason of state; and Polieucte in matters of
religion is as solemn as the long staps upon
our organ. Since that time it is grown into
a custom, and their actors speak by the hour-
glass, as our persons do; nay, they account
it the grace of their parts, and think them-
selves disparaged by the poet, if they may
not twice or thrice in a play entertain the
audience with a speech of an hundred or two
hundred lines.

Notice the references to everyday occurrences in
the above passage, the directness of the command, “Look
upon Cinna,“ the generally shorter structure, the light-
ness and the authority'with which Dryden puts forth
his ideas.

There are, I believe, other reasons than the in-
fluence of Tillotson, however, for Heander's sudden
changing of the pace. 'we must remember that much of
the first part of the “Essay of Dramatic Poesy," esr
pecially the arguments of Crites and Eugenius, contains
the stock Opinions of the day which Dryden is setting
up in order that, in the person of leander, he may
later refute them. The speeches are set, formal speeches
proposing one or another of the traditional ideas of
the time. Crites, Eugenius» and Lisideius are not Dryden

speaking, but Sir Robert Howard, Lord Buckhurst, and

 

131d. , 71-72.

57

Sir Charles Sedley. 'when Neander speaks, he has no
need to set up the technical problems to be discussed
in formal systematized speeches. He can converse; they
had to orate. He can talk to themindividually in
answer to their ideas; they had to address the group as
a whole. And those who know Dryden, whether it be his
prose or his poetry, know that he is never better than
when he is arguing against something or someone. Re-
buttal was his strongest forte and everywhere and al-
ways he rises to it and performs at his best. Perhaps
Dryden deliberately kept the interesting new style for
leander. Perhaps, too, he was deliberately parodying
the duller styles of the others in the earlier part of
the essay. It is entirely possible, however, that his
more intense interest in the things Neander was saying
almost automatically led to the more enthusiastic tone
and direct communication of the last part of the piece.
It is important to notice that in his revision in 168k
Dryden did not structurally alter the style of the essay.
Crites, Eugenius, and Lisideius speak in the same tone in
the 168# edition as they did in 1668.

That Dryden knew Tillotson has been fairly definitely
established. In the preface to QReligio Laici” (1882)
he says: "I have us'd the necessary Precaution, of

showing this Paper before it was Publish'd to a judicious

58

and learned Friend, a Man indefatiguably zealous in

the service of the Church and State: and whose'Writings
have highly deserv'd of both." 1 Smith says that this
learned friend was John Tillotson, 2 who at the time was
preacher at Lincoln's Inn and Canon of Saint Paul's.
Dryden must have known his Rule g: Faith (1666) at least
by the time he wrote "Religio Laici."

David Nichol Smith believes it likely that Tillot-
son's writings and perhaps his preaching had drawn
Dryden's attention to little niceties of style such as
the ending of a sentence with an accented monosyllable
or a polysyllable and the placing of the preposition.
The revised edition of the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy,"
which did not appear until 1684, had over a hundred
alterations, chiefly verbal. The most frequent revision
is the omission of the final preposition. Smith suggests
these minor niceties as comprising the chief reason for
the debt Dryden felt he owed Tillotson:

Somehow Dryden had realized that a sentence had
better not end with an unaccented monosyllable.
Now I suggest that these alterations contain the
clues to his professed debt to Tillotson. The
style of Tillotson is clear and easy, but is free
from the colloquial placing of the preposition,
and I am ready to believe that it drew his atten-
tion to this and other little points affecting
the turn of a phrase. But that his debt to
Tillotson was greater than that-dNo! Dryden's
prose is much more muscular than Tillotson's and

rivets our attention much more strongly. It
would have been wholly in keeping with the

 

1scott-Saintsbury, pp. cit., x, 11.
2

 

Smith, _o_p. cit., 89-90.

59

generosity of his nature...to have made the
most of a very little. He must have known

as well as we do that the 'harmony' of his
prose, and its clarity, and its vivacity, were
not derived from the maps workmanlike effi-
ciency of Tillotson's.

Let us examine the first two paragraphs of Tillot-
son's sermon, ”The‘Wisdom of Being Religious," which
it is suggested Dryden read:

Job. xxviii And unto man hg said, Behold, the
fear of the Lord, that is‘Wisdom; apd tg_depgrt

fgom evil lg understanding.

In this chapter Job discourseth of the
secrets of nature, and the unsearchable per-
fections of the works of God. And the result
of his discourse is this, that a perfect know-
ledge of Nature is no where to be found but in
the Author of it; no less wisdom and understand-
ing than that which made the‘world and contrived
this vast and regular frame of Nature can
thoroughly understand the PhilosOphy of it, and
comprehend so vast a design: But yet there is
a knowledge which is very preper to man, and
lies level to humane understanding; and that is
the knowledge of our Creator; and of the duty
we owe to him; and the wisdom of pleasing God,
by doing‘what he commands, and avoiding what
he forbids: this gnowledgg and‘wisdom may be
attained by man, and is sufficient to make him
happy. Agg unto m§n_gg said, Behold, thg_fear
g£_§h§ Lord that i3 Wisdom, agg,§g,dep§gt £20m

evil ig_flnderstanding.

These words consist of two PrOpositions,
'which are not distinct in sense, but one and
the same thing variously express'd; For wisdom
and understanding are sygonymous words here;
and though sometimes they have different no-
tions, yet in the Poetical Books 2§_Scripture
they are most frequently used as words equiva-
lent, and do both of them indifferently signify

lIbid., 89-90.

60

either a spgculative knowledge of things, or
a practical skill about them, according to
the exigency of the matter or thing spoken of.
And so likewise the fear 2; pp; Lord, and
departure from evil, are phrases of a very
near sense, and like importance; and there-
fore we find them several times put tOgether
in Scripture: ...So that they differ only a
cause and effect which by a Metonymy usual
in all sorts of Authors, are frequently put
one for another.

Now to observe Neander's first speech in the
"Essay of Dramatic Poesy.” This is taken from the
1668 edition without the later grammatical changes:

I shall grant Lisideius, without much
dispute, a great part of what he has urged
against us; for I acknowledge that the French
contrive their plots more regularly, and ob-
serve the laws of comedy, and the decorum of
the stage (to speak generally) with more
exactness than the English. Farther, I deny
not but he has taxed us Justly in some irregu-
larities of ours, which he has mentioned; yet,
after all, I am of cpinion that neither our
faults nor their virtues are considerable
enough to place them above us.

For the lively imitation of Nature being
in the definition of a play, those which best
fulfil that law ought to be esteemed superior
to the others. 'Tis true, those beauties of
the French poesy are such as will raise per-
fection higher where it is, but are not suffi-
cient to give it where it is not: they are
indeed the beauties of a statue, but not of
a man, because not animated with the soul of
Poesy, which is imitation of humour and passions:
and this Lisideius himself, or any other,
however biassed to their party, cannot but
acknowledge, if he will either compare the
humours of our comedies, or the characters of
our serious plays, with theirs. 2

 

1John Tillotson,‘Works, ed. 8, London: T. Goodwin,
B. Tooke, and J. Pemberton in Fleet Street; J. Round in
Exchange Alley, and J. Tonson in the Strand, 1720, 1.

fiber, 22. sit... I, 67.

61

I think it is impossible to trace any definite influence
of the Tillotson passage on the second. Although it is
clear that the two writers were both.working toward a
simplified prose style, Tillotson's writings are full of
summaries and announcements of what is to come. His style
is much more lOgical and tight, and has, we must admit,

a didactic tone; while Dryden's is more flowing and has a
conversational freedom. Tillotson is always careful to
make his structure clear, while Dryden's longer sentences
with their looser structures give the impression of a
fine negligence. Although they are both examples of the
more simple prose demanded by the Restoration period,

the passages above are different varieties of that prose,
written by different men for different reasons. Both

are influenced by the tendencies of the age and are an-
swers to the need of the time for a usable, clear stand-
ard. I am inclined to believe with Smith, however, that
.the actual influence of Tillotson on Dryden, if such
influence existed at all, was confined largely to minor
technical changes that did not affect the style as a

whole.

Influence of the Court
The return of Charles II to the throne in 1660
brought with it the return of the refinement, wit, and

62

gaiety of the court tradition. ‘With an elevated and
cultivated court life, came readers and patrons for the
literary men of the age.

That the court circles, together with other literary
gentlemen, provided the chief audience for Dryden's prose
is evident. Almost all his works were accompanied by
a prose dedication to one of the nobility, and many of
his prefaces, which were certainly not written for the
mob, contain clues that show us for whom he wrote:

The Court, which is the best and surest judge of
writing, has generally allowed of verse; and in 1
the town it has found favourers of wit and quality.
But he [Holydaijrote for fame, and wrote to
scholars: we write only for the pleasure and
entertainment of those gentlemen and ladies,
who, though they are not scholars, are not ig-
norant: persons of understanding and good sense,
who, not having been conversant in the original,
or at least not having made Latin verse so much
their business as to be critics in it, would be

ad to find if the wit of our two great authors
finvenafl and Horace be answesable to their fame
and reputation in the world.

And this quotation from the ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy”
shows us that he considered he had two audiences:
If by the peeple you understand the multitude,...

'tis no matter what they think; they are some-
times in the right, sometimes in the wrong:

 

1Ibid., "Epistle Dedicatory to the Essay of Dramatic
Poesy,” I, 2%. -

2:2;g,, ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-
gress of Satire,” II, 111.

63

their judgment is a mere lottery. Epitghl plebs
recte‘plutat, est ubi peccat. Horace says it of

- the vulgar, judging poesy. But if you mean the
mixed audience of the populace and the noblesse,
I dare confidently affirm that a great part of
the latter sort are already favourable to verse;
and that no serious plays written since the
King's return have been more kindly received by
them than The Siege pijhodes, the Mustapha,‘gh§
Indian Queen, and the Indian Emperor.

Obviously it was not for the general people that the log-
ical and fairly technical prose prefaces justifying his
works were written. There is no "writing down" in
Dryden's prefaces as there is in the plays which he "gave
to the people."
In many other parts of his prose Dryden shows the
direct influence of the court in his discussions of the
refinement of the language and the age and in his dislike
for pedantry and dull scholarship as opposed to the
lighter "well-bred" learning of the gentleman.
Only it has been persecuted by some like pedants,
with violence of words, and managed by others like
gentlemen, with candour and civility.

And again, of pedants:
But of all people, as they are the most ill-
mannered, so they are the worst judges. Even of
words, which are their province, they seldom know
more than the grammatical construction, unless

they are born with a poetical genius, which is a
rare portion amongst them.

11bid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I, 100.

21bid., "Epistle Dedicatory to the Essay of Dramatic
Poesy, .

3
Ibid., ”A Parallel of Poetry and Painting," II, 148.

64

Of the conversation of the great, Dryden has this
to say:

I have always acknowledged the wit of our
predecessors, with all the veneration which be-
comes me; but, I am sure, their wit was not that
of gentlemen: there was ever somewhat that was
illebred and clownish in it, and which confessed
the conversation of the Authors. And this leads
me to the last and greatest advantage of our
writing, which proceeds from conversation. In the
age wherein those poets lived, there was less
of gallantry than in ours; neither did they keep
the best company of theirs. ...I cannot find
that any of them had been conversant in courts,
except Ben Johnson; and his genius lay not so
much that way, as to make an improvement by it.
Greatness was not then so easy of access, nor
conversation so free, as now it is. I cannot,
therefore, conceive it any insolence to affirm,
that, by the knowledge and pattern of their wit
who writ before us, and by the advantage of our
conversation, the discourse and raillery of our
comedies excel what has been written by them.

It was not Dryden's habit, as it was that of many of his
contemporaries, to underline words prolifically for
emphasis, and to me his underlining of “conversation”

in the above passage means a great deal. The most dis-
tinguishing characteristic of Dryden's prose style is
its easy, flowing air of wellébred conversation. 'When
we consider the paragraph above and remember Dryden's
comment previously quoted from his ”Preface to Sylvae”
urging “the freedom of habitudes and conversation with
the best company of both sexes,” we can say that be him-
self may have felt that was his ‘writing's outstanding
quality-«a quality which he deliberately nurtured and
emphasized. And for this ”free conversation with the great”

 

1M" “Defence of the EpIIOgue,“ I, 174-175.

65

Dryden is in debt to the court of Charles II and to the
gentlemen-about-town who gathered afternoons to spend

the time at Hill's.

French Influences

The Restoration brought a swing to the continental
after the insularity of the years of strife. It was
natural that the new age should turn to the example of
French literature and the instruction of the French critics
for its standards and knowledge. At this time France was
in the Golden age of its literature. Under Richelieu the
French Academy had been founded and seemed to be suc-
ceeding in its task of purification and correction. Charles
brought many of the French modes and habits with him, and
French was replacing Latin as the language of diplomacy.

This invasion of French culture brought with it the
principles of French criticism, and French criticism was
based on system and correctness and, above all, on classi-
cal rules. Dryden never refutes the general doctrines of
the ancients and he may be classified as of the Gallic
school in the way in which he bases his essays on the
classical doctrines. ‘Vhen the rules fit his private judg-
ment, he finds them very convenient to use as argument and

he can pay them due respect:

66

To inform our judgments and to reform our tastes,
rules were invented, that by them we might dis-
cern when Nature was imitated, and how nearly.

...for without rules there can be no art, any
more than there can be a house without a door
to conduct you in it.

But when a rule stands in the way of what he wants
to say and what his common sense tells him is true, he
has no trouble forgetting it, or justifying his way out
of it:

...better that a mechanic rule were stretched 3
or broken, than that a great beauty were omitted.

or humbly excusing himself for breaking it:

If this can neither be defended nor excused,
let it be pardoned at least, because it is
acknowledged; and so much the more easily, as
being a fault which is never Rommitted without
some pleasure to the reader.

or dramatically blowing it away:
'Why should'we offer to confine free spirits
to one form, when we cannot so much as confine
our bodies to one fashion of apparel?
Of the more meticulous correctness of the French
school of criticism, he is less respectful:
I shall never subject my characters to the

French Standard, where love and honogr are to
be weighed by drachms and scruples.

 

1 bid., "a Parallel of Poetry and Painting," II, 134.

id., 138.
Ibid., “Dedication of the Aeneis,“ 158.

'0
H

U)

gt?

id., *A.Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-
gress of Satire,” 114.
d

5 i ., 102.
6 id., ”An Essay of Heroic Plays,” I, 157.

 

F‘F”

67

or

I should not have troubled myself thus far with

French poets, but that I find our Chedreux

critics wholly form their judgments by them.

But for my part, I desire to be tried by the

laws of my own country; for it seems unjust

to me, that the French should prescribe here,

till they have conquered. 1

A more specific consideration of the influence of
French culture on Dryden's period may be found in the
attitude toward the use of French words. The Restora-
tion period has often been rather hastily assumed to
be an age particularly apt to introduce new words from
the French. Dryden's own use of French words and his
ideas on them will be discussed in a later chapter, but
in this more general discussion the findings of Profes-
sor Jesperson on this matter are immediately relevant.

In 1905, Jesperson made a study of one thousand words
borrowed from French, classifying them by the half-
century to which the earliest quotation in the New
Epglish Dictionapy belongs. The results of his find-

ings are listed below:

 

No. of No. of
Ralf-century 'Words Half-century 'Words
before 1050 2 lk51-l500 76
1051-1100 2 ‘1501-1550 84
1101-1150 1 1551-1600 91
1151-1200 12 1601-1650 6
1201-1250 6 1651—1700 3
1251-1300 127 1701-1750 3#
1301-1 50 120 1751-1800 16
1 51-1 00 180 1801-1850 23
1 Ol-lh50 70 1851-1900 2
1

id., ”Preface to All for Love,“ 195.

68

He concludes, ”The common assumption that the age of
Dryden was particularly apt to introduce new words from

the French is very far from being correct.” 1

The half-
century in which Dryden wrote shows an outstanding dr0p
in the importation of new French words. The lOgical
conclusion is that, despite, or perhaps because of, the
strong example of French literature and the French
.Academy, English.writers were becoming more aware of
English as an adequate literary language itself and were
refusing to follow the lead of their more ”correct“
neighbors in diction as in other language elements.

Although, as we have seen, Dryden long held the
dream of an Academy for Britain, he seems to have had
little respect for the French idea of purity and correct-
ness. Perhaps, however, an amount of British patriotism
entered in her, for despite all his grumbling and come
plaining, Dryden always ”stuck up” for his language
and his time. He says of the French:

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.

Our men and our verses overbear them by their

weight; and Pondere, ppp,npgero, is the British

motto. The French have set up purity for the

standard of their language; and a masculine
vigour is that of ours.

 

1Otto Jes rson, Growth and Structure of the English

Lppgppgp, ed. , New York: D. Appleton a Co., 1923, 95.
2Kcr, 9p. cit., ”Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 218.

69

Let the French and Italians value themselves on
their regularity; strength and elevation are our
standard. I said before, and I repeat it, that
the affected purity if the French has unsinewed
their heroic verse.

There is little that is peculiarly French in the
details of Dryden's prose; however, for the general
arrangement of the material and the composition of the
whole he is in debt to several Frenchmen.

Ker traces the ancestors of his prose to Chapelain's
Poeti no, the dialOgues and essays of Barrasin, the
prefaces of Scudery and the discourses and Examens of
Corneille.

In all these different authors, and in others,

there was to be found, with different faculties,

the same common quality of clearness in exposi-
tion and argument, which even without genius

may be pleasing, and with genius is the most

valuable auxiliary, as in the essays of Dryden

and Corneille.

In comparing Dryden with Corneille, Ker points out
that both began writing before the styles of their day
were clearly set, both saw the pragrcss of “correct“
ideas and felt obliged to conform to them, both had
come to understandings‘with themselves about the meaning
and authority of the rules of Poetry, and both had an
original love of freedom. The problem of the two men,

then, was the same: to reconcile their personal

11212.. 229.
2Inc., I, xxviii.

7O

Opinions and the leading ideas of their time--t0 fol-
low tradition and yet be free. And Ker suggests that
Dryden must have got from Corneille, ”if not the orig-
inal impulse to write freely about his literary Opinions,
at any rate a quickening of interest in critical dis-
cussion which left its effects on all his later writings.']'

Saintsbury, however, is not willing to agree with
Ker. ‘Hriting in his History p§_English Criticism, he
says, “It is not till Saint Evremond, perhaps even
till Fenelon, that I can find in France the indescrib-
able pmpg_§pli§,punctpg as in him. And both are his
inferiors.’ 2

Saint Evremond, the other great critic of the time,
lived in England from 1662 to 1665 and from 1670 until
his death in 1703. He is referred to three times in
Dryden's critical writings, but never by name. In all
cases the French writer is advocating something'which
Dryden is attacking, and Dryden, out of respect, lists
him only as ”another critic whom I will not name.“
Saint Evremond was an older man than Dryden. He was
fifty-two when he came to England, and an established
critic. It is quite possible that his influence af-
fected Dryden's style as well as his ideas. Mildred

 

121d” xix.

2George Saintsbury, A Histogy 9_f_ English griticisg,
New YOrk: Dodd, lead and Co., 1912, 11 .

71

J'comes to the

Martin, in her unpublished dissertation,
conclusion that, of the French writers, Dryden owed
most to Saint Evremond.

That.nontaigne was his teacher, Dryden himself ad-
nits:

...the nature of a preface is rambling, never

wholly out of the way, nor in it. This I have

learned from the practice of honest Montaigne...
And Hontaigne was the only French.writer who Dryden

mentions as an influence on his style.

Latin Influences
As for his background in the classical languages,
Dryden, who was a king's scholar, was instructed at
‘westminster School by Dr. Busby, to whom Dryden forty-
two years later inscribed his 9Fifth Satire“ of Persius:
...to whom I am not only obliged myself'for the
best part of my own education and that of my two
sons; but also have received rom him the first
and truest taste of Persius.
That at‘westminster Dryden got the ”best part'I
of his education in the classical languages, most Of
his biOgraphers seem to believe. At Trinity College,
‘which he entered in 1650, Dryden widened his acquaintance

1Mildred Alice Martin, Inglpences pp_Dryden's Prose
t 1e unpublished dissertation, University Of Illinois,
U1. _ 8118: 1940, 11"2 0

2Ear, 2p. cit., ”Preface to the Fables,” II, 255.

3Quoted in Iark‘Van Doren, John Drydepzi A Study
33: his Poetry, New York: Henry Holt 3. Co., 19F6, 5.

72

with the Latin poets. Van Doren says, “His Opinions
of the-users likely to be the traditional Opinions

that Scaliger's brilliant criticism had made standard.

But he employed them for purposes quite his own.” 1

Dryden was not a scholar. Bis writings are full
Of careless errors and false facts that a scrupulous

student would catch. In his life of Dryden, Johnson

says:

It is not to be supposed, that his skill in

the ancient languages was deficient, compared
'with that Of common students; but his scholas-
tick acquisitions seem not prOportionate to his
Opportunities and abilities. He could not,
like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illus-
trious merely by his learning. JEe mentions but
few books, and those such as lie in the beaten
track of regular study; from'which if ever he
departs, he is in danger of losing himself in
unknown regions. ...his studies were desul-
tory and fortuitous than constant and systemr
atical. 2

It is plain that the author himself had a higher
Opinion of his linguistic skills than his biOgraphers.
In the prefaces to his own translations, Dryden often
condemns those translators who translate from languages
in‘which they are not fully competent:

lo.man is capable of translating poetry, who,

besides a genius to that art, is not a master 3
both of his author's language, and of his own...

 

11219... 9.
2Johnson, pp, 913.. 398.

3Ker, 22. c t., “Preface to the Translation of
Ovid's Epistles, I, 241.

73

And Dryden, who was constantly plagued by criticism
and who often anticipates it by justifying himself in
advance, was not likely to have written such a statement
unless he felt it applied to him.

Dryden's often quoted confession from the “Dedicaf
tion of Troilus and Cressida,‘ that at times he had
to translate an idea into Latin in order to decide on
the correct way to express it in English, receives
little credulity from those who know his prose.
Jesperson puts the feeling of Dryden's readers well
when he says, 'I am afraid that Dryden would never
have become the famous writer he is, had he employed
this practice as often as he would have us imagine.“ 1
Dryden was not so careful of his grammar and so waste-
ful of his time as to have gone through this practice
Often in his prose. For do his prose sentences, as a
rule, read like a Latin translation.

As for specific authors, he knew the greatest Of
both the Latin and Greek poets. Virgil was his favorite.
Horace, Ovid (from whom he might have acquired some of
the swiftness Of his gait), Lucretius (who might have

influenced his reasoned verse), Seneca, Lucan, Statius,

 

1Jesperson, 2p. cit., 130.

74

Juvenal, and Persius were all ancients whom he knew well.
Dryden has done translations of eight of these ancients:
Ovid, Theocritus, Lucretius, Horace, Juvenal, Persius,
Virgil, anleomer. Lucretius was done with singular
success. Wfiis passages from the second and third books
of the 22,Rerum.Natura,' writes Van Doren, “must be
numbered among the most convincing speciments of ratio-
cinative poetry in any language. The spirit of the Ro-
man has invaded and actually moved the Englishman; for
a time he is another person.” 1 His Juvenal was also
very successful. It is still probably the standard
verse translation of the great satirist. Saintsbury says:

The vigorous stamp of Dryden's verse is...

admirably suited to represent the original,

and the chief fault noticeable in it-—a

fault not uncommon with Dryden in translating--

is an occasional lapse into an unpoetical verna—

cular, with the object, doubtless, of represeng-

ing the text more vividly to English readers.
The most considerable task of translation which Dryden
undertook‘was the‘works g§_Virgil, which he completed
in 1697 and which is still the best verse translation
of that poet.

Undoubtedly these classical authors influenced his

poetry much more than his prose structure. Many of his

 

1Van Doren, 22. cit., 97.
28aintsbury,'Dryden, 9g. cit., 145.

75

poetic images and figurative expressions come from them,
and in his prose we find frequent quotations and illu-
sions which helped him form a basis on which to take off
and expound or which supplied him with authority to
justify his reason.
Dryden's prose, however, compared with that of his
contemporaries and the writers who immediately pre-
ceded them, is remarkably free from classicisms and
Latin diction. The same cannot be said of his poetry,
but, as is discussed later, he made the sharp nee-classic
distinction between words appropriate to poetry and
those correct for prose. He often expresses the idea
that for prose purposes English is fully sufficient:
O Our language is noble, full, and significant;
and I know not why he who is master of it may
not clothe ordinary things in it as decently
as the Latin, if he uses the same diligence
in his choice of words. 1
The Man.Himself
The characteristics of a man's prose are due most
significantly of all to the personality of the writer
himself and the conditions surrounding him through‘which
all other influences must filter.
Dryden's purpose in turning to prose was, at least
at the beginning of his career, strictly utilitarian.

 

ller, 92. cit., ”An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” 104.

76

He wrote poetry, plays and translations in an age when
literary and personal controversy was at its highest,
and he used the "other harmony” only to express his
thoughts on poetry and to explain and Justify his
theories. There is almost nothing on prose writing in
his essays except when, speaking of poetry, he speaks
of things that are also true of prose or when he explains
how poetry is more than prose.

It is because Dryden used prose only as an instru-
ment to express his thoughts that his style has some of
the admirable characteristics it has. Not being inter-
ested in prose as an art, he was less apt to polish it
with elaborate and elegant decoration and complicated
construction. Saintsbury suggests that accident had
favored him in a reverse way to that in which it had
favored Guez de Balzac (1597-1654), the reformer of
French prose:

Balzac had nothing to say, and therefore was
extremely careful and exquisite in his manner
of saying it. Dryden had a great deal to say,
and said it in the plain, straight-forward
fashion which was of all things most likely to
be useful for the format on of a workman-like
prose style in English.

Are we to suppose, then, that because Dryden had
something to say and said it directly, his style would

of necessity be what it was? ‘We may assume, perhaps,

 

18aintsbury, Dryden, 92. cit., 123.

77

that consciously Dryden was not very interested in his
prose style as a'work of art. But unconsciously, or
in his bones, he had a strong sense of language and a
taste for what was natural and right.

Then, too, Dryden possessed an unusual amount of
intellectual curiousity and had an unusually broad
background. He knew a little about almost everything;
we could almost say he tried, or at least considered,
everything once. And his age, with the dawning of the
new science, with the extremely controversial religious
ideas, with its continental standards of criticism, and
its fund of knowledge from both classical and earlier
English sources, included almost everything. From this
hodge-podge of miscellaneous and conflicting ideas,
Dryden, with the help of his reason and commonsense,
chose that which best served his immediate purposes and
his catholic taste. He had a legical and supple mind,
and in an age of almost insane fanaticism, he kept his
sanity and sense of prOportion.

Never a pedant, Dryden, for all his talk of ”correct-
ness” was not apt to be careful in what he called “the
negligence of prose.“ He contradicts himself frequently,
apparently so earnest about the immediate point at hand
that he forgets what he has said before, and his use of
language is not always consistent. He frequently di-

gresses-na fault which his natural orderliness always

78

seems to feel obliged to point out and apologize for..

That most of his writing‘was done in haste, we have
ample proof. He tells us, and we believe him, that
"thoughts, such as they are, come crowding in so fast
upon me, that my only difficulty is to choose or to re-
Ject, to run them into verse, or to give them the other
harmony of prose,“ 1 and he speaks in other places of
the heat of writing:

I find I have launched out farther than I in-
tended in the beginning of this preface; and
that, in the heat of writing, I have touched 2
at something, which I thought to have avoided.

The heat seems to have been applied from other direc-
tions than inspiration alone:

.I have tired myself, and have been summoned by
the press to send away this Dedication; other-
wise I had exposed some other faults, which are
daily committed by out English poets; which,

with care and observation, might be amended. 3

This lack of revision occurs often in Dryden's writ-
ing, and from the writing itself we can see it to be
true.

He [yr.'Walter Moylé] had also furnished me,
according to my request, with all the particu-
lar passages in Aristotle and Horace which are
used by them to explain the art of Poetry by
that of Painting; which, if ever I have time
to retouch thifi essay, shall be inserted in
their places.

 

lKer, 9p. g_i__t_., ”Preface'to’the Fables,” II, 249.
2;2i§., “Preface to an Evening's Love,” I, ltl.
3;p;g,, “Dedication of Examen Poeticum,” II, 12.
4;§i§,, “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” 138.

79

”The Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” the essay in which
the last passage occurs, was ”begun and ended in twelve
mornings” 1 and comprises thirty-eight pages, including

a fair amount of research, in Her's edition.

Dryden characteristically excuses his lack of re-
vision and, with his usual ability, finds arguments for
it. In the first quotation he is speaking of poetry, but
we can definitely assume his attitude applied even more
to his prose:

As for the more material faults of writing‘which
are preperly mine, though I see many of them,

I want leisure to amend them. 'Tis enough for
those who make one poem the business of their
lives, to leave that correct: yet, excepting
Virgil, I never met with any which was so in
any‘language.

A work may be overdwrought, as well as under-
wrought; too much labour often takes away the
spirit by adding to the polishing, so that

there remains nothing but a dull correctness,

a piece without any considerable faults, but

with few beauties; for when the spirits are

drawn off, there is nothing but a caput mortuum. 3

To conclude, I am sensible that I have written
this too hastily and too loosely; I fear I
have been tedious, and, which is worse, it
comes out from the first draught, and uncor-
rected. This I grant_is no excuse; for it
may be reasonably urged, why did he not write
with more leisure, or if he had it not, (which
was certainly my case,) why did he attempt to
write on so nice a subject? The objection is
unanswerable; but, in part of recompense, let

 

.1Ibid., 153.

2;2;g,, ”Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy,»
I, 110.» .

3Ibid., ”A Parallel of Poetry and Painting," II, 152.

80

me assure the reader, that, in hasty produc-

tions, he is sure to meet with an author's

present sense, which cooler thoughts would

possibly have disguised. There is undoubted-

ly more of spirit, though not of judgment,

in these incorrect essays; and consequently,

though my hazard be the greater, yet the

reader's pleasure is not the less. 1

And Dryden again was right. The over a hundred
corrections in the l68h revision of his ”Essay of
Dramatic Poesy,” although almost all make his prose
more correct, detract from the flavor of the style itself.
Although his air of colloquial negligence and his
language irregularities in a writer of less genius
would be disastrous, they become in Dryden the ele-
ments that give his prose the feeling of good conversa-
tion. If Dryden had felt inclined to take more pains
in the writing of his prose, if he had had more time
to write and had followed the rule of revision, his
style would not have had the life, the vigor, and the
strength that have made it one of the greatest in the

tradition of English prose.

1Ibid., ”Preface to Sylvae,” I, 269.

81

V. ANALYSIS OF mYDEN'S PROBE STYLE

Dryden lived in a time when a number of critical
standards new to England were coming before the atten-
tion of critics and writers. The reaction against the
excesses of the later Renaissance schools of poetry
originated in France under the leadership of Malherbe
and Boileau, who insisted on the need for discarding
the extravagant ornaments of style and for cultivating
simplicity, clearness, propriety, decorum and modera-
tion. These ideas spread to England through.Royalist
men of letters who had been in exile during the Com-
monwealth, through the influence of the court, and
through the strong example of French literature itself.

England was emotionally quite ready for this new
classicism. The religious and political strife of the
commonwealth are had left the peOple with a desire for
peace, conformity, and the golden mean in all things.

The desire for order, system, classification, and
definition led to the develOpment in literature of
such concepts as Correctness, Refinement, Elegance, and
Proyriety. There was still much controversy in Dryden's
time, however, as to just what was correct, refined,

elegant, and prOper.

82

Diction
As the leading literary man of the day, Dryden was
naturally drawn into the controversy, and in many parts
of his prose he shows us that, of all the constituents
of style, he was primarily concerned with diction:

...let us consider in what the refinement of a
language principally consists: that is, either
in rejecting such old words, or phrases, which
are ill sounding, or imprOper; or in admitting
new, which are more prOper, more sounding, and
more significant. The reader will easily take
notice, that when I speak of rejecting imprOper
words and phrases, I mention not such as are
antiquated by custom only, and, as I may say,
without any fault of theirs. For in this case
the refinement can be but accidental; that is,
when the words and phrases, which are rejected,
happen to be imprOper. ‘Neither would I be
understood, when I speak of imprOpriety of
language, either wholly to accuse the last age,
or to excuse the present, and least of all my-
self; for all writers have their imperfections
and failings: but I may safely conclude in the
general, that our imprOprieties are less fre-
quent, and less gross than theirs. One testi-
mony of this is undeniable, that we are the
first who have observed them; and, certainly,
to observe errors is a great step to the cor-
recting of them.

Those words which are ~antiquated by custom," al-
though not condemned in the above passage, are con-
sidered imprOper nevertheless and for a true'writer's

1‘." on 2

 

w

1Ibid., “Defence of the EpiIOgue,' I,'16u.

83

If the first end of a writer be to be under-
stood, then, as his language grows obsolete,
his thoughts must grow obscure.

Dryden does not, however, object to revivals, if
they are used with the moderation which seems to be his
touchstone as far as language is concerned:

...in my opinion, obsolete words may then be

laudably revived, when either they be more
sounding, or more significant, than those in
practice; and when their obscurity is taken
away, by joining other words to them,‘which
clear the sense; according to the rule of
Horace, for the admission of new words. But
in both cases a moderation is to be observed
in the use of them: for unnecessary coinage,
as well as unnecessary revival, runs into
affectation; a fault to be avoided on either
hand. 2

I have been unable to find any examples of revivals
in Dryden's prose diction; however, they are the hardest
sort of diction to recognize, especially if they are
successful. Dryden's prose as a whole is noticeably
more current than his poetry, and he seems to have been
more inclined to go a little ahead of his time in his
language rather than return to the past.

Of coining, I have been more successful. He men-
tions a form of it previously in his “Defence of the
EpilOgue: '.

There is yet another‘way of improving
language which poets especially have practiced

 

, ”Preface to the F'ables,‘I II, 266.

1Ibid.
2Ibid” 'A.Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-
grass of S tire,“ 29.

8a

in all ages; that is, by applying received words
to a new signification; ...by this graffing, as
I may call it, on old words has our tongue been
beautified by the three foreementioned poets,
Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Johnson whose ex-
cellencies I can never enough admire; and in
this they have been followed, especially by

Sir John Suckling and Mr.‘Waller, who refined
upon them. Neither have they, who succeeded
them, been wanting in their endeavours to

adorn our mother tongue: but it is not so law-
ful for me to praise my living contemporaries,
as to admire my dead predecessors.

A very successful coinage of Dryden's is the word
“witticism' for which the Oxford Dictionary gives him
full credit. He lit upon it while answering one of
his critics who objected to his images of angels dis—
solving in hallelujahs which appears in IE£.§£§££.2£.

'I have heard (says one of them) of anchovies
dissolved in sauce; but never of an angel in
hallelujahs.' A mighty witticism! (if you will
pardon a new word,) but there is some difference
between a laugher and a critic.

But in the "Preface to Albion and Albanius” occurs a
very clumsy attempt:

...the recitative part of the Opera requires

a more masculine beauty of expression and sound;
the other, which for want of a prOper English
word, I must call the songish BLUE: must ghound
in the softness and variety of numbers...

1Ibid., “Defence of the Epilogue," I, 171.

2Ibid., *The Author's ApolOgy for Heroic Poetry and
nse,‘l 188.

 

85

The expression ”as misers do their grandam gold” 1 is
an echo of Dryden's own play, Ihgfflilg_Gallant: "Now
I think on 't, Frances has one hundred and twenty
pieces of old grandam-and-aunt gold left her, that she
would never let me touch.” 2 And in the ”Dedication of
the Aeneis': “These are mob readers.“ 3
That Dryden uses mg§,in any way tells us a great
deal about his attitude toward language. ”I have done
my best,” said Swift, ”for some Years past to stOp the
Progress of ngbg.and Banter, but have been plainly
borne down by Numbers, and betrayed by those who pro-
.mised to assist me.” 4
It is clear throughout Dryden's writing that he

made the neo-classic distinction between words suitable
to poetry and words suitable to prose. Latinisms and
archaisms and the careful choic of words to fit his
subject appear throughout his poetry, but are much less
frequent in his prose. For:

‘we have enough in England to supply our neces-

sity; but if we will have things of magnificence

and splendour, we must get them by commerce.

Poetry requires ornament, and that is not to be
had from our old Teuton monosyllables. 5

 

1;2;Q., ”Preface to the Fables,” II, 267.

2Quoted in Her, gig" 310.

3:949" 310.

“Quoted in Baugh, 9p. 2.1.13... 351}.

5Her, 22, gi3,, ”Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 234.

86

And again in this quotation he shows his distinction:

Upon your first perusal of this poem, you have
taken notice of some words, which I have innovat-
ed (if it be too hold for me to say refined)

upon his Latin; which, as I offer not to intro-
duce into English prose, so I hope they are
neither imprOper, nor altogether unelegant in
verse...

Upon his attitude toward Latin words in poetry,
Dryden is explicit in this excellent passage. His at-
titude toward them we may also assume to be, though less
consciously, his attitude to their use in prose, for
Dryden was not one to let arbitrary distinctions stand
in the way of what he wanted to say:

I will not excuse, but justify myself, for
one pretended crime, with which I am liable to
be charged by false critics, not only in this
translation, but in many of my original poems;
that I latinize too much. 'Tis true, that,
when I find an English.word significant and
sounding, I neither borrow from.the latin, nor
any other language; but, when I want at home,

I must seek abroad. If sounding words are not
of our growth and manufacture, who shall hinder
me to import them from a foreign country? I
carry not out the treasure of the nation, which
is never to return; but what I bring from Italy,
I spend in England; here it remains, and here

it circulates; for, if the coin be good, it will
pass from one hand to another. I trade both
with the living and the dead, for the enrich-
ment of our native language. ...but every man
cannot distinguish between pedantry and poetry;

 

1 id., “Preface to Annus Mirabilus,“ I, 17.

87

every man, therefore, is not fit to innovate.
Upon the whole manner, a poet must first be
certain that the word he would introduce is
beautiful in the Latin, and is to consider, in
the next place, whether it will agree with the
English idiom: after this,he ought to take
the Opinion of judicious friends, such as are
learned in both languages: and, lastly, since
no man is infallible, let him use this licence
very sparingly; for if too many foreign words
are poured in upon us, it looks as if they
were designed, not to assist the natives, but
to conquer them. 1
Few Latin words are actually incorporated into
Dryden's prose. He uses Latin terms rather profusely,
but they are always underlined and never anglicized.
As he is often basing his arguments on Latin poets,

so he is often using their terms and phrases: praeter

expgctatgm, Primum Mobile, guos Libitina sacravit, g;
parts, petitio prigcipi, bona fide, prosogogoeia, Vita
grabs est, ense rescindendum, sermo pgdestris, quantum

mutatus, plebeium sapgre, libertinus, species, and
many others. ‘But I do not believe that this affects

the style of Dryden's prose at all.

”Wit writing“ and “instance in” are examples of his
use or the old scholastic idiom,'which, as he often uses
scholastic logic, frequently enter in. The humors and

elements and the use of the circle are terms from the

 

1Ibid., ”Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 234-235.

88

old medieval termin010gy, but Dryden does not cling re-

ligiously to these:

‘When an ancient word, for its sound and sfgnifi-
cance deserves to be revived, I have that reason-
able veneration for antiquity to restore it. All
beyond this is superstition. 'Words are not like
landmarks, so sacred as never to be removed; cus-
toms are changed, and even statutes are silently
repealed, when the reason ceases for which they
were enacted.

Moderation is also the keynote of Dryden's atti-
tude toward and use of French words:

It is obvious that we have admitted many, some
of which we wanted, and therefore our language
is the richer for them, as it would be by im-
portation of bullion: others are rather orna-
mental than necessary; yet, by their admission,
the language is become more courtly, and our
thoughts are better drest.... They, who have
lately written with most care, have, I believe,
taken the rule of Horace for their guide; that
is, not to be too hasty in receiving of words,
but rather to stay till custom has made them
familiar to us. For I cannot approve of their
way of refining,‘who corrupt our English idiom
by mixing it too much with French: that is a
sephistication of language, not an improvement
of it; a turning of English into French, rather
than a refining of English by French. ‘We meet
daily‘with those fOps, who value themselves on
their travelling, and pretend they cannot express
their meaning in English, because they would
put off to us some French prase of the last ed-
ition; without considering, that, for aught they
know, we have a better of our own. But these
are not the men who are to refine us; their
talent is to prescribe fashions, not words; at
best, they are only serviceable to a writer so
as Ennius was to Virgil.. He may aurum £5,

 

1;pid., 'Preface to the Fables,” 266-267.

89

stercore colligere: for 'tis hard if, amongst

many insignificant phrases, there happen not

something worth preserving; though they them-

selves, like Indians, know not the value of

their own commodity. 1

As with Latin words, Dryden was more likely to use
French words in his plays and poetry than in his prose.
Scott says, ”It will admit of question, whether any
single French word has been naturalized upon the sole
authority of Dryden.” 2 Lowell suspects that Dryden
was the first to use magnetism in its sense of moral
attraction. 3 In a note for the Egg English Dictionary
published in Modern Langgage‘flgggg, 4 E. A. Hammett lists
the following from a study by Alexandre Beljame, 5 as
words used by Dryden antedating the first reference
given in the dictionary: brunette, burlesque, ggjg_:
ingg g§g§g_blanche, critigue, embarass, fati ue, i3:
contestable, and 29331; and Hammett himself adds cooing
and 99391 in the sense of sticky.

or obviously French words, I have found Dryden to
use: §_pr02os,lbiassed, politic, 19992912, 19319, 2291,

poygant, decorum, He seems to recognize diction as not

 

1Ibid., ”Defence of the EpilOgue,” 170-171.

 

3Lowell, 92, cit., 75-76.

uE. A. Hammett, ”A Note for the N. E .D.," Modern
Langgage Notes LIV, 449. .

5Alexandre Beljame, uae e Gallicis Verbis ;E.An. li-
can Linggam {ohannes Dryden ntroduxerit, Paris: 1

90

fully naturalized: ”...in every part of his diction,
or (to speak English) in all his expressions.” 1 Cer-
tainly Dryden did not go out of his way to include
French words in his prose, as he has been accused of
doing in his poetry.

It has been suggested previously that Dryden was
influenced by the new science in his use of technical
terms in "Annus Mirabilus.” In his preface to that
poem.he tells us: 8

'We hear indeed among our poets, Of the thun-
dering of guns, the smoke, the disorder, and the
slaughter, but all these are common notions.

And certainly, as those who, in a logical dis-

pute keep in general terms, would hide a fal-

lacy; so those, who do it in any poetical des-
cription would veil their ignorance...For my

own part, if I had little knowledge of the sea,

yet I have thought it no shame to learn; and if

I have made some few mistakes, it is only, as

you can bear me'witness, becauss I have wanted

Opportunity to correct them...

This admiration of technical terms was short-
lived, however, and there is nothing comparable to ”Annus
Mirabilus' in his prose. ‘Vriting thirty years later,
he gives us the reason why:

I will not give the reasons why I writ not al-

ways in the prOper terms of navigation, land

service, or the cant Of any profession. I
will only say, that Virgil has avoided these

 

lKer, 92, cit., ”Preface to Sylvae," I, 266.
2Ibid., ”Preface to Annus Mirabilus,” 13.

91

prOprieties, because he writ not to mariners,

soldiers, astronomers, gardeners, peasants,

etc. but to all in general, and in particular

to men and ladies of the first quality, who

have been better bred than to be too nicely

knowing in the terms. In such cases, it is

enough for a poet to write so plainly, that

he may be understood by his readers; to avoid

imprOpriety, and not affect to be learned in

all things . 1

Dryden seems to have felt the same about scientific
language. Although he occasionally refers to the ideas
of the new scientists, he rarely, if ever, uses their
vocabulary. As we have seen, Dryden was not deeply
learned in science and the ”men and ladies of the first
quality” for whom he wrote were as little versed in its
terms. The general and ordinary, rather than the speci-
fic and technical, form the basis of Dryden's vocabulary.

The real flavor Of Dryden's diction, then, comes

from his consistent use of easy, familiar, colloquial
terms. One would think that a conversational style
such as his would naturally collect all the temporary
idioms and peculiar colloquialisms of his period. But
by his sense of what was right, it seems to have gathered
neither the burrs of the too familiar nor the even
uglier thistles of pedantry. Always, and almost miracu-
lously, he steers the middle way between vulgarity and

affectation. He is never a pedant; he is always a gentleman.

 

1Ibid., WDedication of the Aeneis,“ II, 236.

92

'WOrds and phrases of informal conversation abound
in his prose: 99999, blggkhead, aged, having 82£.El£§£.
23s §§.8229.§§.£§E22s §.§9°t Bglnt 12.22%!22s E§.E§2.§B.
maintaamaassmaaaimm. lheaeiapmaseia
99299, ;_hgyg_mggg_business‘gigh,

Fortunately for the sparkle of his prose, he did
not share Swift's attitude toward contractions. 2331
ltig, 93:2, 192, and others are scattered throughout.

The following is an interesting example of his use of
12m:

...and therefore set out leisurely and softly

with 'em, till he had warmed 'em by degrees;

and then he began to mend his pace, and to draw

them along with his own impetuousness. 1

”Wit,” said Dryden, "is best conveyed to us in the
most easy language; and is most to be admired when a
great thought comes dressed in words so commonly re-
ceived, that it is understood by the meanest apprer
hensions, as the best meat is most easily digested..." 2
And it is largely because of his happy choice of this‘

language, because he had an unfailing sense of what was

good and permanent, and because he endeavored ”to write

 

1Ibid., "Preface to Troilus and Cressida,” I, 223.

2 id., ”Essay Of Dramatic Poesy," 52.

93

English, as near as I could distinguish it from the
tongue of pedants, and that of affected travellers,"
that his prose is almost as readable today as it was
when he first dashed it off to send to Tonson.

Almost nothing in his diction is Obsolete. He uses
remember for remind, adventure for what is now venture,
and he writes “presented the poet" for ”gave the poet a
present.” His £39m.2923,33 pillar has become our £32m.
pillar 39,2923, and his by little and little is our
little by little. He uses 23$.ggigggrg_where we would
say ”gone away" or ”passe”. But almost all of Ker's
voluminous notes are notes on the contents of the essays.
Dryden's diction can easily stand the test of three hun-
dred years' time and last far beyond that to be read

without footnotes.

Figures
Saintsbury and Her agree that if there is any flaw

in Dryden's style, it is in his over-use of the conceits
for which the traditional style of the first part of his
century may be responsible. However, perhaps the main
reason for Dryden's inability to do without figures is
that he was too much a poet to be able to think without
images for very long at a time.

That Dryden realized the danger, even in poetry, is
evidenced by his comments in ”The Author's ApolOgy for
Heroic Poetry and Poetic Licence” which prefaced his

94

dramatic version of Paradise Lost. He states that fig-
ures are not to be avoided, but to be used judiciously.
”Baldness of the expression is not to be blamed, if it
be managed by the coolness and discretion which is neces-
sary to a poet.” 1 And he warns:
Cowley is sunk in his reputation because

he could never forgive any conceit which came his

way; but swept like a drag~net, great and small.

There was plenty enough, but the dishes were ill

sorted; whole pyramids of sweetmeats for Boys and

women, but little of solid meat for men.
No one could complain of the figures in the passage just
quoted. And although Dryden may slip occasionally and
give us a long involved classical conceit, the play of
images and the neat turn of words is Dryden, and much of
the lightness and quickness of his style would be lost
without them.

As for the sources of his figures, they are as
varied as the personality and interests of the man. They
come from both the old and the new sciences, from the
classics and mytholOgy, from the law courts, the trades,
the court world, business, nature and the arts. His
figures are always such as would be generally known.

Like the words which he uses, they are never too tech-

nical and narrow for even the twentieth century reader

 

1Ibid., I, 186.

2 id., ”Preface to the Fables,” II, 258.

95

to follow.

In one of the best essays, ”The Dedication Of the
Spanish.Friar,“ I have found an interesting passage
which, although atypical, shows the wide range of Dryden
at the peak Of his imagery, and, although it is long,

I would like to quote it at, as Dryden would say, the
risk of being tedious:

And though many poets may suspect themselves for
the fondness and partiality of parents to their
youngest children, yet I hOpe I may stand exempted
from this rule, because I know myself too well to
be ever satisfied with my own conceptions, which
have seldom reached to those ideas that I had
within me; and consequently, I presume I may have
liberty to judge when I write more or less pardon-
ably, as an ordinary marksman may know certainly
when he shoots less wide at what he aims. Be-
sides, the care and pains I have bestowed on this,
beyond my other tragi-comedies, may reasonably
make the world conclude, that either I can do
nothing tolerably, or that this poem is not much
amiss. Few good pictures have been finished at
one sitting: neither can a true just play, which
is to bear the test of ages, be produced at a
heat, or by the force of fancy, without the matu-
rity of judgment. For my own part, I have both
so just a diffidence of myself, and so great a
reverence for my audience, that I dare venture
nothing without a strict examination; and am as
much ashamed to put a loose indigested play upon
the public, as I should be to offer brass money
in a payment; for though it should be taken (as
it is too often on the stage), yet it will be
found in the second telling; and a judicious reader
will discover, in his closet, that trashy stuff,
whose glittering, deceived him in the action. I
have Often heard the stationer sighing in his
shOp, and wishing for those hands to take off
his melancholy bargain which clapped its per-
formance on the stage. In a play-house, every-
thing contributes to impose upon the judgment;
the lights, the scenes, the habits, and above

96

all, the grace of action, which is commonly the
best where there is the most need of it, surprise
the audience, and cast a mist upon their under-
standings; not unlike the cunning of a juggler,
who is always staring us in the face, and over-
whelming us with gibberish, only that he may
.gain the Opportunity of making the cleaner con-
veyance of his trick. But these false beauties
of the stage are not more lasting than a rain-
bow; when the actor ceases to shine upon them,
when he gilds them.no longer with his reflection,
they vanish in a twinkling. I have sometimes
wondered, in the reading, what was become of those
glaring colours which amazed me in Bussy Digmbgyg,
upon the theatre; but when I had taken up what I
supposed a fallen star, I found I had been cozened
with a jelly; nothing but a cold, dull mass,
which glittered no longer than it was shooting;

a dwarfish thought, dressed up in gigantic words,
repetition in abundance, looseness of expression
and gross hyperboles; the sense of one line ex-
panded prodigiously into ten; and, to sum up all,
incorrect English, and a hideous mingle of false
poetry, and true nonsense; or, at best, a scant-
1ing of wit, which lay gasping for life, and
groaning beneath a heap of rubbish. 1

From parents' fondness for their children, to marks-

men, to painting, to the digestive process, to commerce,

to juggling, to the sun, to theatrical sets, to dwarfs,

and at last to suffocation is surely a remarkable gamut,

and, for we need not be Freudian, shows a mind which was

absolutely cosmOpolitan in its tastes and interests.

Dryden must have had a hundred images for each thing he

wanted to say, and that he used the restraint he did is

truly remarkable. Very probably, here too we have his

haste and, what Johnson would call, his laziness, to

thank.

 

lit-bid e ’ I, 21"“ “2“6 e

97

Dryden's images, although rarely so fantastic as
to draw attention from the content, often make what would
seem dull, delightful. 'Whether they consist of one word,
such as that wonderful metaphor, ”Fletcher was a limb of
Shakespeare,“ or sprawl on for half a page, they are
clear and original and make the tone of the whole famil-
iar. Through his images we know the writer, and, while
he sometimes amuses us, he never fails to please and
entertain.

This is an amusing simile to modern readers:

I am confident your Lordship is by this time of

my Opinion, and that you will look on those half

lines hereafter as the imperfect products of a

hasty Muse; like the frOgs and serpents in the

Nile; part of them kindled into life, and part

a lump of unformed unanimated mud.
And in this he changes his food:

...we cannot read a verse of Cleveland's with-

out making a face at it, as if every word were

a pill to swallow; he gives us many times a

hard nut to break our teeth, without a kernel

for our pains.

Imagination seems to be connected with spaniels in
Dryden's mind:

...for imagination in a poet is a faculty so
wild and lawless, that like an high-ranging
spaniel, it must have clogs tied to it, lest
it outrun the judgment. 3

 

1 , ”Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 231.
2
3

Ibid.
Ibid., ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” I, 52.
Ibid., ”Dedication of the Rival Ladies,” 8.

98

..Jiit'writing...is no other than the faculty
of imagination in the writer, which, like a
nimble spaniel, beats Over and ranges through
the field of memory till it springs the quarry
it hunted after...

Lazar (leper) is a word Often used figuratively
by Dryden and always with reference to painting:

...for the one EHeroic Poesy] shows nature

beautified, as n the picture of a fair woman;
which we all admire; the other EBurlesque]
shows her deformed as in that of a Lazar.
And in comparing tragedy and comedy:
Such is a Lazar in comparison to a Venus. 3
A Lazar and a Venus appear again in the ”Preface to
Tyrannic Love”:
If with much pains and some success I have
drawn a deformed piece, there is as much of art
and as near an imitation of Nature in a Lazar,
as in a Venus.

The art Of Painting is one of Dryden's favorite
sources of metaphor and simile. One is not surprised
when, toward the end of his life, he writes "A Parallel
of Poetry and Painting." He has been drawing parallels
of them all his life. "

His skill at making figures clarify an idea by

bringing it to life is evidenced by the following passages:

 

l;§id., ”Preface to Annus Mirabilis,“ 14.

N

Ibid., 18.

Ibi

U)
Q

., “A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” II, 132.
4Ibid., 1, 287. '

99

Thus Prose, though the rightful prince,
yet is by common consent desposed, as too weak
for the government of serious plays: and he
failing, there now start up two competitors;
one, the nearer in blood, which is Blank Verse;
the other, more fit for the ends of government,
which is Rhyme. Blank Verse is, indeed, the
nearer Prose, but he is blemished with the
weakness of his predecessor. Rhyme (for I
will deal clearly) has somewhat of the usur-
per in him; but he is brave, and generous,
and his dominion pleasing. For this reason
of delight, the Ancients (whom I will still
believe as wise as those who correct them)
wrote all their tragedies in verse, though
they knew it most remote from conversation.

But in general, the employment of a poet is
like that of a curious gunsmith, or watchmaker:
The iron or silver is not his own, but they are
the least part of that which gives the value:
The price lies wholly in the workmanship. And
he who works dully on a story, without moving
laughter in a comedy, or raising concernment
in a serious play, is no more to be accounted
a good poet, than a gunsmith of the Minories

is to Be compared with the best workman of the
town.

These swallows, which we see before us on the
Thames are the just resemblance of his wit:
you may observe how near the water they stOOp,
how many proffers they make to dip, and yet
how seldom they touch it; and when they do,
'tis but the surface: they skim over it but
to catch a gnat, and then mount into the air
and leave it.

Tis with a Poet, as with a man who designs
to build, and is very exact, as he supposes, in
casting up the cost beforehand; but, generally
speaking, he is mistaken in his account, and
reckons short of the expense he first intended.

lIbid., ”Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” 115.
2Ibid., “Preface to an Evening's Love,” 147.

3Ibid., ”An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,’l 35.

100

He alters his mind as the work proceeds, and
will have this or that convenience more, of
which he had not thought when he began. 80
has it happened to me; I have built a house,
when I intended but a lodge; yet with better
success than a certain nobleman, who, begin-
ning with a dog-kennel, never lived to finish
the palace he had contrived.

Despite his great and constant use of figurative
language, Dryden had no patience with puns, which he
called "the fulsome clench that nauseates the Town," 2
and "the most grovelling kind of wit.” 3 He criticises
Jonson and Sidney for them, and even of Horace's puns
he says, ”I am sorry to say it, for the sake of Horace;
but certain it is, he has no fine palate who can feed
so heartily on garbage." 4 Puns certainly are not pre-
velent in Dryden's prose, but I believe that the fol-
lowing smells just a little like the "garbage” be con-
demned, although this pun emphasizes and clarifies and
is very successful:

Such is a Lazar in comparison to a Venus: both
are drawn in human figures; they have faces alike,
though not like faces.

Dryden uses and alludes to homespun proverbs such

as ”he killed two birds with one stone” 6 and “the fox's

L__

119i9,, "Preface to the Fables,“ II, 246.

2;2;Q., "Preface to Troilus and Cressida,” I, 221.

31999,, ”Defence of the EpilOgue,” 173.

“Ibid., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-
gress of 3a atire,’ II, 95.

5;bi§_., ”A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,” 132.

6

t?

id., ”Dedication of the Aeneis,” 196.

101

quarrel to the grapes.” 1 His writing is not crowded
with them, however, and they do not become repetitious.
Although Dryden never capied himself enough to
fall into what we might call "mannerism," he has some
repetition of phrases and illustrations. He himself
said of translating Virgil:
I who inherit but a small portion of his genius,
and write in a language so much inferior to

the Latin, have found it very painful to vary
phrases, when the same sense returns upon me.

2
Dryden's affinity for painting and spaniels has been
mentioned above. A favorite phrase seems to be ”the
sting of an epigram.”
...‘tis not the jerk or sting of an epigram... 3

...which had more of the sting of an epigram 4
than of the dignity and state of an heroic poem.

You shall, therefore, hear him speak in his own
person, and that in the last two lines, or sting
of an epigram. 5
There is repetition, too, almost every time he
speaks of the ”old Teutonic monosyllables“ that seem to

have annoyed him so:

 

 

1Ibid., ”The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and
Poetic Lice ence,” I, 189.

2__1g_*ped1cetion of the Aeneis,” 231.

3;2;g,, ”Preface to Annus Mirabilus,“ I, 14.

4;p;g,, “Of Heroic Plays,” 152. I

53351., ”Defence of the EpiIOgue,” 173.

102

Our original Teutonic, consisting most in mono-
syllables, and those encumbred with consonants...

...it consists too much of monosyllables, and 2
those, too, most commonly clogged with consonants.

...unless I would make use of monosyllables
only, and those clogged with consonants, which
are the dead weight of our mother tongue.

...that is not to be had from our old Teuton
monosyllables...

Qgt,gg,ggggg is an expression which Dryden uses
throughout his writings, e.g.: ”As for Augustus, or his
uncle Julius, claiming by descent from Aeneas, that title
is already out of doors,” 5 and ”little follies were
out of doors when Oppression was to be scourged instead
of avarice.” 6

Johnson complains of what he feels is Dryden's over-
use of the pronoun I. Dryden, as though anticipating
Johnson's criticism, often asks to be excused for
speaking of himself:

In the meantime I beg the reader's pardon, for

entertaining him so long with.myse1f: 'tis an
unusual part of ill manners in all authors, and

 

1_I‘_9_i_._g_., ”Preface to Albion and Albanius,” 274-275.
2939., 278.

3I2ig,, “Dedication of the Aeneis," II, 226.

“Laid,” 234 '

5.13251... 176.

6Ibid. “A Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-

 

gress of Satire,” 87.

103

almost in all mankind, to trouble others with

their business; and I was so sensible of it

beforehand, that I had not now committed it,

unless some concernments of the reader's had

been interwoven with my own.
And again:

Anything, though never so little, which a man ,

speaks of himself, in my Opinion, is still too

much; and I therefore will waive this subject...
Actually Dryden practices what he preaches in his above
comments.. He talks rarely about himself. The ;,is
prevalent because he talks to his readers rather than
communes with himself. If Dryden's use of ;_can be
called a 'mannerism,” it is indeed a fortunate one,
because it gives his essays much of their informal tone.

Dryden's use of expressions and figurative language,
then, like his choice of words, is natural and informal.
He is almost never archaic, for he choses his figures,
as his words, from the general, the universal, and the

timeless.

Syntax _
In Dryden's syntax we find more that is archaic
than in either his diction or his imagery. It seems

 

"1Ibid.,‘”A‘Psreiiei‘ot'Poet y and Paint1n8:" 117°

2Ibid., 5A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Pragress of Satire," 80.

 

104

most legical to center a discussion of Dryden's obsolete
constructions within the sentence around his use of the
various parts of speech. As we have seen, in the Restor-
ation period English had as yet no standard or uniform
grammar. ‘What Dryden had of uniformity came from his
studies under Dr. Busby of Latin grammar and from his

own observation of how the language was written and
spoken around him. Although Dryden seems to have been
more interested in the problems of grammar than in the
more purely mechanical aspects of English, to be ex—
tremely careful and meticulous was not in his make-up.
His common sense and natural aptitude for 10gic prOb-
ably served as the final authority rather than the
Opinions of the ”dull pedants' and ”foolish grammarians,”
as he called them. He once, in his ”Defence of the I
Epilogue, or, An Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the
Last Age,” played the role of grammarian himself and
discussed Ben Jonson's errors. His revision of his own
“Essay of Dramatic Poesy'I (168#) also shows that at
least once-Dryden made a deliberate effort to improve
his syntax."

Mechanics. Before commencing a consideration of
Dryden's syntax, perhaps it would be well to discuss in
a few paragraphs, the spelling and punctuation of the '
time.

105

Ker has chosen to modernize the spelling in his
edition, and wisely so. He declares that, if the orig-
inal spelling had been kept, it would have represented,
not Dryden 's own way of spelling, but the caprices of
various printers between 1664 and 1700. The spelling
was most irregular, and it is possible to find authority
somewhere in Dryden for most modern forms. Ker does
not allow spelling which would cause an organic change
in the word, however, and so we find mg for £339,

WflrW seminar 19.1221: mm
and mg for M and shgzgd, 59.119. for thread, and
others.

That Dryden was not at all interested in the spel-
ling of his prose is made obvious by the following
quotation. He has been discussing the derivation of the

word satige .

In the criticism of spelling, it ought to be
with i and not with l: to distinguish its true
derivation from satgga, not from satyr_2._s. And
if this be so, then it is false spelled through-
out this book; for here it is written Sat

which having not considered at the first,
thought it not worth correcting afterwards . But
the French are more nici, and never spell it any
other way than satire.

”I thought it not worth correcting afterwards” cer-
tainly shows Dryden's attitude toward spelling, and
toward mechanics in general, I believe.

 

J‘Ibid., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and Pro-
gress of Satire,” II, 66.

 

106

As for punctuation, Mildred Martin in her disserta-
tion 1 came to the conclusion that we must hold the au-
thor, not the printer, responsible for the usage. She
bases this on three points:

1. All prose of the time was punctuated with colons
and semi-colons and the printers followed cOpy as close-
ly as possible.

2. In errata added to some seventeenth century
books, no attention was called to errors in pointing.

3. None of Dryden's changes in his revision of the
“Essay of Dramatic Poesy” were changes in punctuation.

McKnight, however, says that punctuation cannot be
said to have been reduced to a definite system until
near the end of the eighteenth century. 2 The comment
of Dryden's that ”the printer has enough to answer for
in false paintings” 3 is well known. I do not believe,
however, that the fact that Dryden did not correct punc-
tuation in his revision means that it had his specific
approval. He was not a man to be accurate, or to fuss
over what must at his time have been superfluous nice-
ties. Nor, for that matter, do I believe he was at all
meticulous about the correctness of the paintings in the

 

lilartin, 92. 91.5., 148.

2George H. McKnight, Modern En lish is. the Making,
New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1928, £17.

3Ker, gp, cit., ”Preface to Sylvae,” I, 262.

107

manuscripts he sent to the printer. The story about the
dire circumstances that befell the young journalist who
misplaced a comma was not circulating in his day, and
Dryden must have been as unconcerned with punctuation
as he was with spelling.

Reyna, The most outstanding archaic use Of nouns
in Dryden is his use of the his-genitive. This was an
Old and common use of the pronoun to give the inflection

of the noun.

In ME the gg_of the genitive being unaccented,
was frequently written and pronounced -i§, -13,
The ending was thus Often identical with the
pronoun his, which commonly lost its thhen un-
stressed. Thus there was no difference in pro-
nunciation between stonis and ston i; (his),
and as early as the thirteenth century the end-
ing'was sometimes written separately as though
the possessive case were a contraction of a
noun and the pronoun ELE-

So we find in Dryden, ”Eugenius his Opinion,“ ”Mr. Sandys
his undertaking,” ”Horace his Art of Poetry,“ but
”Chapman's Homer." And in the "Preface to the Fables,"
On one page we find “Ovid's books“ and "Chaucer's
stories," but WBoccace his Decameron.” ‘Although I have
not made a thorough study, Dryden seems to have used

the his-genitive consistently after the g_ending. ‘We

have no way of knowing how he pronounced Boccace.

 

13811311, 22o £1130, 297'298e

108

If he gave it the Italian ending, perhaps he also used
this construction after vowels. If he pronounced the
final sound as the gh_in church, then it is comparable
to the g sound given above.

‘With collective nouns, Dryden always seems to use
the plural form of the verb: ”the world have mistaken,”
”the audience are,” ”the company were." Kellner says
that this is a frequent usage due to the subjective
character of the concept of number. ”Of this conces-
sion made by grammar to psychology there are instances
from Old English down to our own day.“ 1

The use of the gerund is frequent with Dryden.

One of the corrections in his "Essay of Dramatic Poesy"
is a change from ”ill managing"' to “ill management.” '

Eggpg, Of verb forms, we find the clipped past
participle: have chose, have 2212; hggg,gpgk_, Dryden
uses both §_h_e_w_ and §_h_o__w_ for the-present tense, shewed
for simple past, and hg!g_shewed as the participle form,
but‘we also find used two years earlier having;gmg1
ghggp, Similarly we find in addition to grit.the form
g§g_written. A correction in the ”Essay of Dramatic

Poesy” is the change to have written from have writ.

 

1Leon Kellner mm
m, London: Macmillan 8. Co., Ltd., 1905, i?

109

Two corrections of subject-verb agreement occur in
the ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy": ”there appears two actiom
in the plays” is changed to “there appear two actions”
and ”out of these two has been extracted the famous rules”
becomes "out of these two have...” ‘We still find a
few such errors in Dryden's later prose, e.g.: ”the
whole fifth act, both the plot and the writing, are my
own additions,” and "eagerness and precipitation makes...”

”They perceived the air break” is in the essay pe- '
dantically corrected to “they perceived the air to break.”
This construction is not common in Dryden, however. '

Dryden avoids the use of the future and conditional
tenses, using h§g_for ygglg Egg; frequently:

...I had not now committed it, unless some con-

cernments of he reader had been interwover

...which I had certainly avoided...if my memory
had not failed me. 2

And he uses the present for the future:

...and am much deceived if he ever be attacked
on this side of his character again.

The emphatic auxiliaries gg_and did for which Dryden has
so Often been criticised in his poetry, appear rarely

in his prose.

 

1Ker, 22, cit., ”A Parallel of Poetry and Painting,”
II, 117. '

2Ibid., ”Preface to the Fables,”269.
3Ibid., ”Dedication Of the Aeneis,” 186.

110

The older usage for placing the negative is evi-
denced in Dryden and does much to detract from his
modernity. One of the changes in the ”Essay of Drama-
tic Poesy” is a change of ”you behold him not“ to ”they
suffer you not to behold him.”

...therefore is not Tragedy to be judged by a

witty man, whose taste is only confined to
Comedy. 1
Ellipses of bg_and gg_as well as the use of the negative

make these archaic:

If I flatter not myself, or if my friends have
not flattered me.

...perhaps it became not one of his function... 3
...that there need no criticisms on our part...
...as I offer not to introduce into English
prose, so I hOpe they are neither imprOper, nor
altOgether inelegant...

In the above, his use of the correlatives is modern.

In the following example, however, he uses neither where

we would use nor:

...there are many witty men, but few poets;
neither have all poets a taste of Tragedy. 6

 

 

lIbid., ”Preface to All for Love,” I, 196.
2_I;r_>_i_g., *Dedication of Examen Poeticum,“ II, 10.
39$” “Preface to the Fables,” 273. ' '
4I2;Q,, ”Dedication of Examen POeticum,” 4.
5;2;g,, *Preface to Annus Mirabilus,” I, 17.

“Preface to All for Love,” 195-196.

0\
’6’
y.
D.
e

b

111

And here we have a double use of neither:
...that neither the Greek poets borrowed from
other peOple their art of railing, neit r
needed the Romans to take it from them.

Then, too, Dryden often omits the negative where we

would use it and inserts it when we would not think it

necessary:

...to use 'em.at every work...is, I doubt, £0
smell a little too strongly of the buskin.

Anything, though neveg so little, which a man
speaks of himself...

...though nfiver so well deserved by particular
priests...

Pronouns. We can get some idea of Dryden's usage
of pronouns by the usage he condemns in other writers
and revises in his own. Of Jonson's:

Thy parricide late on thy only son,

After his mother, to make empty way

For thy last wicked nuptials, worse than they

That blaze that act Of thy incestuous life,

‘Which gained thee at Once a daughter and a wife.
Dryden says, "The sense is here extremely perplexed;

and I doubt the word they is false grammar." 5

 

fir—

1 id., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress of Satire,” II, 45.

S1

 

id., "Preface to Troilus and Cressida,“ I, 224.

gm

5’

3 id., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress of Satire,” II, 80.

 

4:.-
8‘

id., "Preface to the Fables," 260.

5 id., "Defence of the Epilogue,” I, 167.

5’

112

In the following, he catches the redundancy:
Caesar and Crassus, if they be ill men,
Are mighty Ones--
Such men, they do not succour more the cause, &c. 1
In revising his ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” Dryden
corrects some pronoun agreements:

...you have yet 03th and time enough to give
part of it [them

...so that all men being alarmed with it, and

in a dreadful suspense of the event which we

[they] knew was then decided... 3
He also criticizes Jonson for this line, “Though Heav-
en should speak with all his wrath at once," as gig.
being "ill syntax" with.Heaven. Baugh lists gig as
very cOmmon usage when referring to neuter nouns in
written English down to the middle of the seventeenth
century. 4

On a whole, Dryden is careful with his pronouns.
His use of the his-genitive often makes his sentences
redundant and clogged with pronouns. The following
is a good example of this. Note too Dryden's use of
the reflexive:

...but Lisideius, after he had acknowledged

himself of Eugenius his Opinion concerning the
Ancients, yet told him, he had forborne, till

 

111g" 168.

21212;, ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” 34,
31219... 28.

#Baush. 92. 9433., 301.

113

his discourse were ended, to ask him why he per-
ferred the English plays, above those of other
nations? 1
Here is another example of a sentence overly crowded with
pronouns:
It is not for the use of some Old Saxon friends
that I have taken these pains with him [Chaucer ;
let them neglect my version, because they have
no need Of it. I made it for their sakes, who
understand sense and poetry as well as they, when
that poetry and sgnse is put into words which

they understand.

Dryden Objects to the use Of ones in the plural num-
ber in Jonson. So, in his revision, he changes ”amongst
great ones“ to ”amongst great persons” and in the next
sentence, to avOid repetition, “the envy of a great
person” is changed to ”the envy of a great one.”
Similarly, “good ones” becomes ”good Plays,” ”to the
most mean Ones” becomes "to those which are mOst mean.“
The idea that the plural g_is wrong seems to affect his
attitude toward the §_ending in other forms: ”every
ones” is changed to "every mans” and "ours" becomes
'bur plays." ’

In one case, he omits the “one” entirely and uses

”only” as a pronoun:

...the action is so much one, that it is the
only of the kind without episode, or underplot...

 

1Ker,,gp. cit., ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” I, 55—56.
2Ibid., ”Preface to the Fables," II,°267..
3Ibid., *Preface to All for Love," I, 192.

114

Dryden does not often allow a sentence to end with
a pronoun. He rejects ”through.with it" in favor of
”through the work.”

The very frequent use Of methinks is another archaism
in the use of pronouns that gives Dryden's prose a not
quite so modern air.

Relatives. 'Egg and Th§t_are used interchangeably
in Dryden. However, he seems to prefer gh2_for persons
when it is not repetitious. Two changes in his "Essay
of Dramatic Poesy” are from ”he that" to "he who“ al-
though in one of the cases the replacing'word avOids
awkward repetition. ”Those poets which” becomes ”those
poets who.“ On the other hand, ”things...whose wit”
is changed to ”things...the wit Of which.” ”That" in
an unusually awkward structure, “Aethra and the Chorus
have but thirty-six verses; that is not for every mile
a verse,” is replaced by "which."

It was not until the sixteenth century that the
pronoun as a relative came into use. 1 All of these
changes reflect, not only Dryden's, but his age's
growing effort in stablizing its use.

One peculiar structure that is common in Dryden

is the following use of that:

 

lsaugh, 9p, cit., 303.

115

Yet, after all, because the play was Shakes-
peare's and that there appeared in some places
of it the admirable genius of the author, I
undertook...

...for example, Phaedra, though she loved her
son-in-law with reluctancy, and that it was a
curse upon her family for Offending Venus, yst
was though too 111 a pattern for the stage.

...I should have discovered some of those graces
which Horace added to it, but that I think it
will be more prOper to defer that undertaking...
To conclude, though the enemies of the composer
are not few, and that there is a party formed
against him of his own profession, I hOpe...

A use of that which seems to be for emphasis some-

times occurs:

‘What he has learnt, he teaches vehemently; and
what he teaches, that he practices himself. 5

'When used as a subordinate conjunction, thgt is
Often omitted, especially when it introduces a short
clause. Evidently Dryden felt that this was not as cor-
rect as it might be, because in the ”Essay Of Dramatic
Poesy” he inserts the omissions in: *adding, [that] we
had but this to desire,” ”you said [that] the dialogue
Of plays is presented,” and ”Lisideius told him [that]

it was necessary.”

 

lKer, 22, cit., ”Preface to Troilus and Cressida,"
I, 203. .

2Ibid., 210.

3Ibid., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress of Satire,” II, 64.

 

4:-

id., ”Preface to Albion and Albanius,” I, 279.

5 id., “A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress of Satire,” II, 77.

5'

 

116

Throughout the rest of his writing Dryden is not so
careful, and he uses the connective or not indiscrimi-
nately.

He uses the conjunction §g_i§_ instead of §g_though:

It looks as if I had desired... 1

...as if every word were a pill... 2

Similarly, he seems to prefer £93 in place of 9;:
ggggg, Often Dryden uses such mixed connectives as
§gg_ghigh and gpg Egg when the §gg_is imprOperly used
between unparallel clauses. (See next quotation below).
An awkward connective, and one unusual in Dryden, "but
being these,” is changed in the ”Essay of Dramatic
Poesy'l to read ”since these.”

Prepositions.

”The waves and dens of beasts could not receive
The bodies that those souls were frightened from.”

Of the above quotation from Jonson, Dryden has the
following to say:
The preposition at the end of the sentence; a
common fault with him, and which I h we but
lately observed in my own writings.
This was a warped idea of Dryden's. The preposition at

the end of the sentence is a genuine English idiom of

 

lIbid , ”Preface to the Fables,’I 271.

2Ibidt, ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy,'l I, 52.
3Ibid., ”Defence of the EpilOgue,” 167-168.

117

long standing in the language and found very frequently
in all writers of natural prose and verse. 1 However,
Dryden's main labor in his 1884 revision was in correcting
"faults" of this kind: ”clear it up,” "much better
treated of,“ ”which the moonebeams played up to,“ “the
age you speak of,” ”the age I live in,” ”the story is
built upon,” ”which we are subject to," ”to clear it
up,” ”seems to allude to,” and others are all changed.
He seems to have been unwilling to let the preposition
stand even when it did not come at the end of a sentence,
for we find ”look upon his Sad Shepherd" changed to
”read his Sad Shephggg,” ”looking earnestly upon him”

to “earnestly regarding him,” "touching upon many rules”
to “observing.many rules,” and other like changes. On '
the other hand, he replaces ”the play goes on” with ”the
play goes forward.” Evidently his prejudice toward the
two syllable preposition is not as strong.

Although this particular idea of Dryden's, when he
remembers to put it in practice, makes his style less
colloquial, it does not make it less modern. The Obso-
lete usage of his age definitely does. Such uses of
the preposition as: ”the best on't it,” ”to accept of
the command,“ “nothing can move our nature, but by some
natural reasOn,” ”somewhat of extraordinary,” ”accept
of those LayéBishOps,” and similar phrases seem odd to

the modern reader.

 

lJesperson, 22, cit., 130.

118

So too do the omissions of propositions where we
would expect them: ”you gave it us,” ”it is not to be
wondered, if,” “to those who object my frequent use
of drums.“

In his revision, Dryden changes some of these archa-
isms, and always to the modern form: ”borrows of” to
"borrows from,” ”a hundred or two of verses” to ”a hun-
dred or more verses,“ and ”enters in a mistake” to
“enters by a mistake.”

It must be remembered Of all his corrections in
the ”Essay of Dramatic Poesy“ that Dryden took extra-
ordinary pains in this revision. He does not seem to
remember many of them.when he writes later and in haste.

Articles. Dryden's use of the article is also
peculiarly that of his time. He often omits it where
we customarily put it, e.g.: ”of Opinion,” ”on priest-
hood.” On the other hand we find "in the general,“ ”the
English” (in speaking of the language), and “of the I
which.”‘ g_is commonly gg_bef0re h_and g, '

Adjectives gpg_adverbs. The adjective and adverb
forms used by Dryden are not always the accepted forms
today. In adjectives, he gives us ”poetical,” ”specifi-
cal,“ and ”majestical,” where we would omit the ending.
He speaks Of the ”errantest hero,“ ”the aptest things,”

and “the chiefest part.” He says, ”ours are more quick

119

and fuller of spirit“ where we would say ”quicker and
more full." ‘We find the two last, the three last, the
fggg.l§gt_consistently, and “these kind of thoughts,”
”all kind of satire,“ ”that sort of tragedies.‘l

Flat adverbial forms abound in his writings: ”false
read,” ”exceeding great,” ”are like to have," “could
scarce have wished,” “pursuing close,” ”extreme elabo-
rate,” ”sure they might warm.themselves,” “exceeding
vain,‘ are a few examples out of many. However, we also
find, ”sounds as ridiculously as the history of David.”

Dryden uses farther in the abstract sense: ”there I
is farther required," "they are farther of Opinion,”
”a farther account of the poem.” 'When our formal usage
might permit farther, he uses further: ”I have trans-
gressed mm bounds and gone farther than the moral led
' me."

To summarize Dryden's syntax, we may say that, al-
though his occasional obsolete usage is never such that
it obscures his meaning, it occasionally calls attention

to itself and marks his prose as not of our era.

Sentence Structure
The structure of Dryden's sentences is loose and in-
formal and lends to his conversational ease and spontaneais-

ness. The presently pOpular periodic sentence is

120

definitely not a characteristic of his sentence style,
and, when it is found at all, is the great exception
rather than the rule. His sentences are, as a whole,
much longer than would be used in any good prose style
today. Perrin lists the average sentence length of pro-
fessional writers today as twenty and nine-tenths words. 1
I have counted approximately the first three hun-
dred words in each Of several essays written at various
times during Dryden's life. In Table I are listed the
number of sentences, the number of words in each sentence,
the average number of words per sentence in the passage,
and the range of sentence length. By examining the
table we can discover the general tendency of sentence
length in our writer.
It is obvious from even this limited survey that
Dryden's sentence length, in general, becomes shorter
as he acquires experience and confidence.' True, the
very long introductory sentences of the "Essay of Drama-
tic Poesy“ are narrative, and we would expect them to
be longer, but the "Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival
Ladies” is the same general type of panegyric we find
in the Opening passage Of the ”Dedication Of Examen

Poeticum,” which contains the shortest sentences of the

group.

 

1Porter G. Perrin,‘Writers' Guide and Index 33.
En lish, Chicago and New York: Scott Foresman & Co.,
19 2, 154.

121

THBLE I

LENGTH OF SENTENCES IN DRYDEN'S PROBE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

No. of Words
No. of sent- per. Average
words ences sent. length Range
Epistle Dedi-
catory t0 the 345 4 709117: 8601 33-125
Rival Ladies 33,125
(1664)
Essay of Drama-
tic Poesy 366 4 56,112, 91.5 56-134
11668) 6414
Dfifence of 388 31,23, 48 1
t e Essay 7 :53: .2 9'79
(1668) l 29.70
Defence of 3 . 8’
theE ilOgue 305 7 43,6 , 43.5 22-66
(16125 22 4 .43
Preface to 61,41,
Aié air Love 301 7 43,33, 8 43.0 32-61
( I 53.3 .3.
Preface t0 82: 1:37: 8
Sylvae 320 9 33:2 35-3 '52
(168 51, 49138, 26
Dedication 8,23,34,
of Examen 315 14 33,31,15, 22.5 8-36
Poeticum 13,36,17,25,
11593) _1212g11§111
Original & 37:2 :
Progress of 294 9 16, 9, 32.7 9-71
Satire 18,69
11693)
Dedication of a2 ,25,10,
the Aeneis 331 9 59 50,59, 34. 5 10-59
(1697)
Preface to 43:25:?
the Fables 308 7 39,45, 44.0 25-94
_25.37.94

11:90)

 

122

However, in Dryden, length of sentence does not
mean as much as it would in writers of more complex
structure. In fact, the length of his sentences might
almost be said to be caused from the techniques of
punctuation used, rather than by actual long construc-
tion. The mere replacing of semi-colons and colons
with periods would change many of his long sentences
into four or five sentence paragraphs. He has a tend-
ency to elongate, piece by piece, as though a new idea
had just come to him, and so, since the various ideas
themselves are expressed in simple structure, the mod-
ern reader simply substitutes automatically where he
would find a sentence break and is Often little aware
of the length. I doubt very much.whether a person
hearing Dryden's prose read would think his sentences
long at all. Perhaps the 134 word sentence listed
above from ”An Essay Of Dramatic Poesy“ will illustrate
this point e

Taking then a barge which a servant of
Lisideius had provided from them, they made
haste to shoot the bridge, and left behind
them that great fall of waters which hindered
them from hearing what they desired: after
which, having disengaged themselves from many
vessels which rode at anchor in the Thames,
and almost blocked up the passage towards
Greenwich, they ordered the watermen to let
fall their oars more gently; and then, every
one favouring his own curiosity with a strict

silence, it was not long ere they perceived
the air break about them like the noise of

123

distant thunder, or of swallows in a chimney:
those little undulations of sound, though
almost vanishing before they reached them,
yet still seeming to retain somewhat of
their first horror, which they had betwixt
the fleets.

Although the structure of the above is more com-
plex than his later word, this passage yet serves to
show one Of Dryden's favorite constructions, the intro-
ductory participle. The following are typical Dryden-
ian sentences:

But some intervening accidents having hither-
to deferred the performance of the main de-
sign, I prOposed to the actors to turn the
intended prologue into an entertainment by
itself, as you now see it, by adding two acts
more to what I had already written. 2

But they assuring me of their assistance in
correcting my faults where I spoke imprOperly,
I was encouraged to attempt it, that I might
not be wanting in what I would, to satisfy
the desires of so many gentlemen who were
willing to give the world this useful work. 3

Having first concluded, that our poet did for
the best in taking the first character of

his hero from that essential virtue on which
the rest depend, he proceeds to tell us that
in the ten years' war of Troy he was con-
sidered as the second champion of his country,
allowing Hector the first place; and this,
even by the confession of Homer, who took

all occasions of setting up his own country-
men the Grecianz, and of undervaluing the
Trojan chiefs.

 

1Ker, pp, cit., "Essay of Dramatic Poesy,” I, 29.
2Ibid., "Preface to Albion and Albanius," 278-279.
3Ibid., "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting," II, 116.

4Ibid., ”Dedication of the Aeneis," 180.

124

The compound sentence with its two independent

clauses joined by a semi-colon alone is also a pattern

which Dryden uses often and well. 'We find it used

most frequently and at its best in his later writings,

although it is not entirely absent from his earlier

essays.

Their plots are single; they carry on one
design, which is pushed forward by all the
actors, every scene in the play contributing
and moving towards it. 1

For this last half year I have been troubled
with the disease (as I may call it) of trans—
lating; the cold prose fits of it, which are
always the most tedious with me, were spent
in the History 2;,th§_Leagpe; the hot, which
succeeded them, in this volume of Verse Mis-
cellanies.

And here your Lordship may observe the address
of Virgil; it was not for nothing that this
passage was related with all these tender
circumstances. Aeneas told it; Dido heard it. 3

Notumque furens quid femina possit; she was 4
injured; she was revengeful; she was powerful.

The Muses have lost him, but the Commonwealth
gains by it; the corruption of a poet is the
generation of a statesman.

 

119.

H
H
U'
H
D:
e

V

”An Essay of Dramatic Poesy,’I I, 70.

M
5’
H
D.»
O

‘0

”Preface tO‘Sylvae," 251.
”Dedication of the Aeneis,” II, 183.

w
H
0"
H
D:
e
V

4:-
S9
H
o.
I

V

192.

U"!
S9

1.».

D:
S

"Defence of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I,

125

Dryden evidently liked the sound of the passage
immediately above so well that he echoes it in his
”Dedication of Examen Poeticum” twenty-five years later:

Thus the corruption of a poet is the genera-
tion of a critic; I mean of a critic in the
general acceptation of this age; for formerly
they were quite another species of men.

The Old formal parentheticals of Clarendon and his
school are gone in Dryden's prose, but he has his own--
short, informal, and colloquial:

Most of Shakespeare's plays, I mean the stories
of them, are to be found in the Hecatommuthi
or Hundred govels g; Cinthio. 2

I doubt not but the same motive has prevailed
with all of us in this attempt; I mean the
excellency of the moral: for the chief per-
sons represented were famous patterns of un-
lawful love; and their end accordingly was
unfortunate.

Expressions such as ”(if it may be worth knowing),"
”(I may almost say),” ”(if I may so call them),” and
"(as they ought)" are prevalent. And we find:

That an alteration is lately made in ours, or
since the writers of the last age (in which I
comprehend ShfikeSpeare, Fletcher, and Johnson),
is manifest.

From that which has been said, it may be col-
lected, that the definition of wit (which has
been so often attem ted, and every unsuccess-
fully by many poets is only this:... 5

 

11219... II, 3.

2;bid., "Preface to an Evening'leove," I, 146.
3;§i§., ”Preface to All for Love," 191.

4;pgg., "Defence of the EpilOgue," 164.

5Ibi d., "The Author's ApolOgy for Heroic Poetry and

Poetic Licence," 190.

126

Pindar is generally known to be a dark writer,
to want connection (I mean as to our under-
standing,) to soar out of sight, and leave

his reader at a gaze.

Dryden's natural love of order led to a natural
use of parallel construction. Three of his changes in
the 1668 edition of the "Essay of Dramatic Poesy" were

changes to parallel structure:

...if some god do not prevent it, by coming
down in a machine, and take [taking] the
thanks of it to himself.

...one reason why comedy is [comedies are]
more pleasing to us, and tragedies to them...

...besides an election of apt words, and a
right diaposing [diapositionj of them...

Elsewhere we find:

But, if the fictions be delightful (which
they always are, if they be natural), if they
be of a piece; if the beginning, the middle,
and the end be in their due places, and art-
fully united to each other, such works can
never fail of their deserved success.

That I admire not any comedy equally with tra-
gedy, is, perhaps, from the sullenness of my
humour; but that I detest those farces, which
are now the most frequent entertainments of

the stage, I am sure I have reason on my side. 3

You have not only been careful of my fortune,
which was the effect of your nobleness, but
you have been solicitous of my rfiputation,
which is that of your kindness.

 

lIbid., "Preface to the Translation of Ovid's
Epistles," 240.

2Ibid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," II, 195.

m

3Ibid., "Preface to an Evening's Love," I, 135.

4Ibid., "Preface to Annus Mirabilus," 10.

127

They are equally pleased in your prosperity,
and would be equally concerned in your af-
flictions. Titus Vespasian was not more the
delight Of humankind. The universal Empire
made him only more known and more powerful,
but could not make him more beloved.

It will be noted that the two quotations immedi-
ately above are examples Of Dryden's panegyric writing.
It is in writing of this type, and in his more system-
atic didactic passages like the one below that Dryden's
parallelism usually occurs.

So then the first happiness of the poet's
imagination is prOperly invention, or finding
of the thought; the second is fancy, or the
variation, deriving, or moulding, Of that
thought, as the judgment represents it prOper
to the subject; the third is elocution, or
the art of clothing and adorning that thought,
so found and varied, in apt, significant, and
sounding words: The quickness of the imagina-
tion is seen in the invention, the fertility
in the fancy, and the accuracy in the eXpres-
sion. For the first two of these, Ovid is
famous amongst the poets; for the latter, Virgil. 2

Dryden Often compares authors, and his balance and
antithesis in such passages is remarkable:

For what remains, the excellency of that poet
was, as I have said, in the more manly passions;
Fletcher's in the softer; Shakespeare writ
better betwixt man and man; Fletcher, betwixt
man and woman: consequently, the one described
friendship better; the other love: yet Shakes-
peare taught Fletcher to write love and Juliet
and Desdemona are originals. 'Tis true, the

 

lIbid., ”A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Progress of Satire," II, 15.

 

2Ibid., "Preface to Annus Mirabilus," I, 15.

128

scholar had the softer soul; but the master
had the kinder. Friendship is both a virtue
and a passion essentially; love is a passion
only in its nature, and is not a virtue but
by accident: good nature makes friendship;
but effeminacy love. Shakespeare had a
universal mind, which comprehended all char-
acters and passions; Fletcher a more confined
and limited...

In Dryden's use of parallelism and balance lies the
most Obvious parallel between his style in prose and his
equally excellent style in poetry. Matthew Arnold has
condemned Dryden's poetry simply because it is so much
like good prose. He argues that the necessary qualities
for a good prose are regularity, uniformity, precision,
and balance. A man whose destiny it was to bring his
nation to the attainment Of a suitable prose style
would, of necessity, give a predominating, almost an
exclusive, attention to those qualities. Therefore,
implies Arnold, Dryden could not write great poetry.

The poetry of Dryden and POpe ”is the poetry of the
builders of an age of prose and reason. Though they
may write in verse, though they may in a certain sense
he masters of the art of versification, Dryden and
POpe are not classics of our poetry, they are classics

of our prose." 2

 

1Ibid., "Preface to Troilus and Cressida," 227-228.

 

2Matthew'Arnold, Essays g3 Criticism, Second Series,
”The Study of Poetry," London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd.,
1913, 41- 20

 

129

There is no need to attempt to show here that
Arnold was wrong. Van Doren and Eliot have sufficiently
vindicated the great satirist. It is of interest here,
however, to consider further Arnold's statement that
the poetry of Dryden makes him, not a classic of Our
poetry, but a classic of our prose. It is clear why
Arnold refuses to consider Dryden a classic of our
poetry. Dryden's poetic criticism of life lacks the
"high seriousness,” the "powerful poetic application”
that Arnold's "touChstone" criterion calls for. That
Dryden's poetry makes him a classic of our prose is a
real tribute to Dryden if we consider the point in the
light of another critic's statement.

T. S. Eliot writes, "There are qualities essential
to good prose which are essential to good verse as well;
and we may say positively with Mr. Ezra Found, that
verse must be at least as well written as prose." 1
Eliot feels that the great originality of Dryden con-
sists in his finding a way to say in verse what no one
else has been able to say except in prose. "To have the

virtues of good prose is the first and minimum requirement

 

:lT. S. Eliot, "Johnson's'London' and 'The Vanity of
Human Wishes, '" in English Critical Essays, Twentieth
Century, selected by Phyllis M. Jones, WCrld's Classics
Edition,‘London: Oxford University Press, 1933, 304.

130

of good poetry," 1 and Dryden's verse is poetry partly
because it has the virtues of good prose.

Dryden conformed the sentence structure of prose
to the metrical pattern of the heroic couplet, and
parallel structure was particularly adaptable to the five
foot, ten syllable lines. It lends itself to sharp, fine
distinctions, and gives a concise precision suitable for
verse of statement rather than of suggestion. Dryden's
use of balance in his poetry promoted that air of spruce
finality so necessary to verse of ratiocination and
satire. Dryden speaks in verse, as he does in his prose,
and often in the same parallel structure.

The following are typical Drydenian lines:

And for my Foes may this their Blessing be,
To talk like Doeg and to write like Thee.

The Bad meet Punishment, the Good, Reward.

This general‘Worship is to Praise and Pray.
One part to borrow blessings, one to pay.

As in his prose, Dryden Speaks his praise in bal-
enced structure:
But Genius must be born; and never can be taught.
This is your Portion; this Your Native Store;
Heav'n that but once was Prodigal before,
To ShakeSpeare gave as much; she cou'd not give him more.

Farewel, too little and too lately known,
‘Whom I began to think and call my own;

 

11bid., 305.

 

131

Parallelism and balance are not as prevalent in
Dryden's earlier poems. His early style shows faint
glimmers of this "prosaic" element, but it is not until
his mature style that we find him master of this tech-
nique. The following stanza from his "Heroick Stanzas"
(1659) in memory of Cromwell gives a brief taste of
what is to come:

Our former Chiefs, like Sticklers of the'War

First sought t'inflame the Parties, then to poise:

The Quarrel lov'd, but did the Cause abhor,

And did not strike to hurt, but make a noise.

In "Religio Laici" (1682) Dryden modestly describes
his style as deliberately prosaic, and gives us at the
same time an example of it in its most balanced and
"prosaic" form:

Thus have I made my own Opinions clear:

Yet neither Praise expect, nor Censure fear:

And this unpolish'd, rugged verse, I chose;

As fittest for Discourse, and nearest Prose:

It is in "The Hind and the Panther," (1687)
Dryden's last great poem in heroic couplets, that we
find his greatest and best use of balance. By this
time we can no longer deem it "prosaic" even in quotes.
Here Dryden has reached his most perfect and poetic
use of the prosaic element. Every word is indiSpensible,
and every word is in its natural order:

And Mercy mixt with reason did impart;

One to his Head, the other to his Heart:

Reason to Rule, but Mercy to forgive:
The first is Law, the last Prerogative.

132

My thoughtless youth was wing'd with vain desires,

My manhood, long misled by wandring fires,

Follow'd false lights; and when their glimps 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.

Without unapotted, innocent within,
She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.

Certainly it can be said that Dryden's prose style
influenced the structure of his poetry in many ways, of
which its influence in balance is only one Obvious example.

It is in Dryden's more studied passages that we
find this careful balance in his prose. For often he
is not parallel when it is awkward not to be:

I must crave leave to tell you, that as I have
endeavoured to adorn it with noble thoughts, so
much more to express those thoughts with elocuation. 1
...who, when at any time he aimed at wit in

the stricter sense, that is, sharpness of con-

ceit, was forced either to borrow from the

Ancients, as to my knowledge he did very much

from Plautus; or, when he trusted himself alone,

Often fell into meanness of expression.

All reasonable men have long since concluded,
that the hero of the poem Ought not to be a
character of perfect vertue, for then he could
not, without injustice, be made unhappy; nor
yet altOgether wicked, because he could not
then be pitied. 3

 

lKer, 9p. cit., "Preface to Annus Mirabilus,” I, 14.
2Ibid., "Defence Of the Epilogue," 172-173.
3Ibid., "Preface to All for Love," 191.

133

Dryden's use Of balance is almost the only element
in his style that might be called studied. Few of the
other self-conscious prose qualities are noticeable.
Dryden strongly condemned inversion in blank verse:

Is there anything in rhyme more constrained

that this line in blank verse, I heaven invoke,
and strong resistance make? where you see both
the clauses are placed unnaturally, that is,
contrary to the common way of speaking, and that
without the excuse of a rhyme to cause it: yet
you would think me very ridiculous, if I should
accuse the stubbornness Of blank verse for this,
and not rather the stiffness of the poet.

We would not expect, then, to find much inversion
in Dryden's prose, and we do not. He does use it in-
frequently for variety, and more Often in his later
works:

According to the falsity of the prOposition was
the success.

Of this Opinion was that excellent person, whom
I mentioned, the late Earl of Leicester, who

valued Chaucer as much as Mr. Cowley despised
him.

Him I follow, and what I borrgw from him, am
ready to acknowledge to him.

The repetition of this last sentence if "I follow him"

were used would be extremely awkward. This sentence,

 

1Ibid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," 94-95.

970

id., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress 0 Satire," II, 113.

 

31bid., "Preface to the Fables," 266.

 

4Ibid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," 178.

134

however, I do not believe is similarly justified:

Obliged he was to his master for his bounty;
and he repays him with good counsel.

In the satirical and argumentive passages, Dryden
often turns to use of the rhetorical question, and it
serves his usual air of aloof superiority well.

Now what, I beseech you, is more easy than to
write a regular French play, or more difficult
than write an irregular English one, léke
those of ShakeSpeare, or of Fletcher?

And in this passage, of critics who are no longer what
they were, he enlists a whole series:

Are our auxiliary forces turned our enemies?
are they, who at best are but wits of the
second order, and whose only credit amongst
readers is what they obtain by being sub-
servient to the fame of writers, are these
become rebels, of slaves, and usurpers, of
subjects? or, to speak in the most honour-
able terms of them, are they from our seconds
become principals against us? Does the ivy
undermine the oak which supports its weakness?
What labour would it cost them to put in a
better line, than the worst 0 those which
they expunge in a true poet?

Dryden's sentences, in general, are sound and flow
smoothly. Few fragments appear in the writing. Occa-
sionally what we would today treat as a modifying clause

is handled as a separate sentence:

 

lIbi

Cl.

., 174.
2Ibid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I, 77.

3Ibid., "Dedication of Examen Poeticum," II, 3.

Adding that no argument could scape some of
those eternal rhymers, who watch a battle
with more diligence than the ravens and
birds of prey; and the worst of them surest
to be first in upon the quarry: while the
better able either out of modesty writ not
at all, or set that due value upon their
poems, as to let them be often called for
and long expected. 1

A few sentences show an awkward redundancy:
Petronius, the greatest wit perhaps of all

the Romans, yet when his envy prevailed upon
his judgment to fall 3n Lucan, he fell him-
self in his attempt.
‘Would a man who has an 111 title to an estate,
but yet is in possession of it; would he
bring it of his own accord to be tried at
‘Vestminster?

In general, Dryden's sentence structure is admir-
ably free from mannerisms. The schematic inversions,
classical involutions, and parenthetical intricacies
of the style which preceded him are gone. It, again,
is like good conversation should be, infinitely
varied and flowing with very rarely the studied

rhetoric and formal pattern which can be analyzed and

classified in a study.

Paragraph Structure
Dryden seems to follow almost no paragraph laws.

He may indeed, initially or eventually, set up a

lIbid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I, 30.

”.-

2Ibid., "Dedication of Examen Poeticum," II, 3.

M

L1)

IQ;Q., "Preface to All for Love," I, 196.

main point, but he dashes away from this point whenever
the mood strikes him, and it strikes him often. To
examine his paragraphing habits, we may turn first to

his "Parallel of Poetry and Painting," which, although
prefixed to Dryden's translation of Du Fresnoy's 2g

'Arte Graphica in 1695, is not a regular preface and

might therefore be expected to have a more formal organi-
zation.

Dryden's first sentence is lOgical enough. "It
may be reasonably expected that I should say something
on my own behalf, in reapect to my present undertaking.
First then... ." He then tells how he was approached
and asked to do the translation. Then he inserts a
discussion of the paintings available in England.

The next paragraph begins, "But to return from my
rambling to my own undertaking of this translation."
Dryden humbly discusses his inability and lack of know-
ledge on the subject; then justifies his use of poetic
expressions.

The third paragraph contains a discussion of the
two months borrowed from his work on Virgil to do the
present work, a pardon for bothering the reader with a
discussion of himself, a philosOphical comment on
mankind's ill manners, a sentence which admits his

digression, a restatement Of his reason for writing the

137

essay, and an introduction of a quotation from Bellori
"which cannot be unpleasing, at least to such who are
Conversant in the philosOphy of Plato." Approximately
the next six pages are taken up with Bellori's'quotation.
(Evidently this was an essay in which Dryden needed some
padding.)

The next paragraph starts off with a condemnation
of Bellori's style, but a commendation of the matter.
Plato is brought in and Italian writers in general. A
"plainer" quotation from Philostratus is introduced next
and this quotation finishes the paragraph.

An apt comparison of Philostratusl quote to a
pilot ship begins the next paragraph, "...so Philostratus
has brought me thus far on my way, and I can now sail
-on without him. He has begun to speak of the great
relation betwixt poetry and painting, and thither the
greatest part of this discourse, by my promise, was
directed." Dryden then tells us that he will not cover
the subjeCt completely and that he will return to Bellori
before he continues to Du Fresnoy.

The following paragraph is a fairly organized
discussion of the perfection in painting and drama in
which the perfection consists of following nature, not
improving her.

The first part of the next paragraph applies what

Dryden had said in the previous one to poetry, contains

138

a new major idea in the middle of it, that each subject
must have a prOper perfection assigned to him, and dis-
cusses Achilles as an exception to this rule, which Vir-
gil followed.

The following paragraph is an explanation of a
seeming contradiction in the idea next above. Following
it, is a summary of the idea that each subject must have
a proper perfection assigned to him. "I will now proceed,
as I promised, to the author of this book."

But more of this seems unnecessary. The fact is
clear to anyone who knows Dryden's prose; he was un-
usually careless in his paragraphing. Most of his more
informal prefaces have much more rambling paragraphs
than the "Parallel of Poetry and Painting." Indeed,
Dryden seems to have made a special effort in the above
to continually force himself back to what evidently did
not interest him. In paragraphing, Dryden does not seem
to improve; rather, in that reapect, and only that, he
gets worse. In the earlier prefaces, as a new writer,
he seems to write more self-consciously, and therefore
is more careful. In his older writings he has confi-
dence and assurance and he rambles as and where he pleases.

Paragraph length in Dryden likewise is unsystematic.
An analysis of paragraph length in seven of Dryden's

139

essays is shown in Table II. As will be seen, there is
little or no pattern of length. "The Defence of the
Essay" with its average of 3.h sentences per paragraph
is a decided extreme. This essay consists mainly of
paragraphs quoted from Howard's "Preface to the Great
Favourite, or, the Duke of Lerma," with paragraphs by
Dryden following each quotation. It will be remembered
that "The Defence of the Essay" also had unusually short
sentences in relation to Dryden's average length at that
time. On the other hand, the "Dedication of Examen
Poeticum" which has the longest paragraphs in the group,
has been seen to contain Dryden's shortest sentences.

Since Dryden's sentences tend to be long, the one
sentence paragraphs in the analysis are rarely short
in the modern sense of the word. Often they contain
a hundred or a hundred and fifty words each.

One of the most obvious inconsistencies in the
paragraphing is Dryden's usage after a quotation which
he is to comment upon. At times the quoted paragraph
stands alone and the comment on it forms a new
paragraph. Just as frequently, however, and in the
same essay, the two form a single paragraph.

Surprisingly enough, Dryden's use of transitions
between paragraphs is very good: Thug, EQQB, £3323,

after all, 39 consider ygt more closely, 39 come 33 a

 

140

TABLE II.
LENGTH OF PARAGRAPHS IN DRYDEN'S PROSE

 

 

Sent- Av. no. Range
Approx. No. of ences of sent. in sent.
no. of para- per per (and
pages graphs pgph. pgph. words)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Epistle Dedi- 4,18,4,5,
catory to the 8 7 16,1l,2 8.5 2(116)-18(732)
Rival Ladies
(166%)

311;)2) 3’2)
Defence of 2,1,2,10, ,
the Essay 23 #8 l,l,2,6,4,2, 3.4 l(33)-15(808)
(1668) 1,1,u,1,2,3,

4:123:51135:

1,8,33215)u1

913,1’4PIS)

1,3,3,6,3,4,

2,2,]
Preface to 16,6,20 1,
All for Love 10 9 9,16,6,£,8 9.5 1(u7)-20(905)
1l678)
Dedication
of the Span- 6 2 34,u 19.0 4(193)-3u(l7u4)
nish.Friar
LifiBl)
Preface to 24,10, 6,
Albion and 12 ll 9, 2,8,1, 7.2 1(38)-24(1097)
Albanius 7, 6,3, 3,
11685) _ _
Dedication 33,14,25,
0f Examen 13 7 20,15,3, 19.3 3(97)-33(1038)
Poeticum 25
(1693) _

3, 9,1E, 6,
Preface to 18, 2,8,13,
the Fables 28 22 23,8, 31,18, 11.3 l(37)-3l(ll94)
(1700) 3.17. 5,20,

13,4:13.1.

__ 3,18

 

*Average page in Ker edition contains approximately
335 words.

141

conclusion, lastly, after all, here,thereforg, and such

 

other introductory phrases made his paragraphs flow
smoothly together. His writing is organic, if not
organized. we never leap from one paragraph to another,

for he takes us with him on his wanderings.

Organization of the Composition
and Tone as a Whole

Dryden, probably because he felt a need to justify
himself, has clearly given us his idea of, if not what
a preface was to be, at least what his prefaces were:

...the nature of a preface is rambling, never
wholly out of the way, nor in it.

'When I speak of your Lordship, 'tis never a
digression, and therefore need beg no pardon
for it; but take up Segrais where I left

him, and shall use him less often that I
have occasion for him; for his preface is

a perfect piece of criticism, full and clear,
and digested into an exact method; mine is
loose, and, as I intended it, epistolary.

...in this address to your Lordship, I design
not a Treatise of Heroic Poetry, but write in
a loose epistolary way, somewhat tending to
that subject, after the example of Horace, in
his First Epistle of the Second Book 39
Augustus Caesar, and in that to the Piso's,
which we call his Ag§_g§ Poetr ; in both of
which he observes no method that I can trace,
whatever Scaliger the father, or Heinsius,
may have seen, or rather think they had seen.
I have taken up, laid down, and resumed as
often as I pleased, the same subject; and

 

 

lKer, _p. cit., "Preface to the Fables," II, 255.
2;b1d., "Dedication of the Aeneis," 178.

182

this loose proceeding I shall use through
all this prefatory Dedication. Yet all this
while I have been sailing with some side-
wind or other toward the point I prOposed

in the beginning...

In the "Preface to the Fables," Dryden says, "In the mean-

time to follow the thread of my discourse (as thoughts
according to Mr. Hobbes, have always some connexion,)...

In most of Dryden's essays, he seems to have relied
very strongly on Hobbes' theory. In many of them we can
say, "He observes no method that I can trace." But,
as in his paragraphing, he is organic, if he is not
organized. He secures remarkable coherence between his
ideas. we slip with him so easily that often we would
never notice when he led us off the track. Dryden, how-
ever, will not let us forget it. He has the very pecul-
iar habit of feeling guilty and reminding us of it, and
by reminding, confessing also that he wrote in haste,
with no detailed plan and with no revision.

I promised to say somewhat of my Poetic licence,

but have in part anticipated my discourse
already.

But to return from my long rambling... 4

 

lIbid., 16n.
2Ibid., 248.

3Ibid., "The Author's ApolOgy for Heroic Poetry and
Poetic Licence," I, 188.

”Ibid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," II, 171.

2

183

I ought to have mentioned him before, when

I spoke of Donne; but by a slip of an old
man's memory he was forgotten.

This is almost a digression, I confess to your

Lordship; but a just indignation forced it
from me. 2

Dryden often seems to be in fear of being criticised for
what he does all the time and takes pains to tell us that
he has not digressed:

'What I have written on this subject will not

be thought a digression by the reader, if he

pleases to remember what I said in the begin-

ning of this essay... 3
And he shows mock horror at what he is about to do any-
way:

Here, my Lord, I must contract also; for, be-

fore I was aware, I was almost running into a

long digression, to prove that there is no

such absolute necessity that the time of a

stage action should so exactly be confined
to twenty-four hours as never to exceed them...

1,
and then he continues to get in a few proofs. Almost
always he says what he wants to and apologizes after,
or tells us he won't digress and then says what he
wants to anyway, so that when he tells us ”...I have

not an Opportunity to examine in this place, because

 

1Ibid., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Progress of Satire," lO5.

 

2Ibid., 81.
3Ibid., "An Essay of Heroic Plays," I, 154.
4Ibid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," II, 162.

144

I cannot do it without digression from my subject," 1
we conclude that he must have some other reason for
remaining silent.

Perhaps the prize example of Dryden's saying one
thing and doing another, or possibly changing his mind
in the middle of a sentence, is this from his "Essay of
Heroic Plays":

I might now, with the usual eagerness of an

author, make a particular defence of this. But

the common Opinion (how unjust soever) has

been so much to my advantage, that I have

reason to be satisfied, and to suffer with

patience all that can be urged against it.

For, otherwise, what can be more easy

for me, than to defend the character of

Almanzor, which is one great exception that

is made against the play.

He then goes on to vindicate Almanzor in over three
pages.

Dryden's obvious lack of detailed planning and his
tendency, even when he has a vague plan, to wander from
it, is confessed too in his own words:

I should now Speak of the refinement of wit;

but I have been so large on the former sub-

ject, that I am forced to contract myself
on this. 3

 

Ibid., "A Parallel of Poetry and Painting," 131.

1

Ibid., "An Essay of Heroic Plays," I, 155.

3Ibid., "Defence of the Epilogue," 171.

[0

lh5

And he informally apologizes to his reader for his length:
I am still speaking to you, my Lord, though,
in all probability, you are already out of
hearing. Nothing which my meanness can pro-
duce is worthy of this long attention. 1

I am now drawing towards a conclusion, and
suspect your Lordship is very glad Of it. 2

It is not necessary to excuse this digressive man-
ner of Dryden's, for it is in this that much of the
charm of his writing lies. He writes, not as though
delivering a formal, orderly discourse, but as though
he were talking to a good friend, as learned and as
interested as he himself is. He does not "write down"
to us and tell us what is right; he treats us as equals
and merely gives us his Opinions, skipping lightly from
point to point. And he saw no reason for pursuing
unity at the risk of other qualities.

Besides his natural affinity for this type of writ-
ing, however, we can discover other reasons for its
structure. ‘We must remember that, except for his "Essay
of Dramatic Poesy," Dryden never sat down to write freely
what was on his mind. He was always concerned with the

particular work to which his essay was a dedication or

...I

Ibid., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Progress of Satire," II, llO-lll.

 

2Ibid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," 235-

146

a preface, Often a work written for profit or pOpular
appeal which did not particularly interest him. His
ostensive reason for the essay was to defend, recom-
mend, or explain the work itself. Therefore, if
Dryden wanted to express himself on other things, and
his catholic mind always wanted to, he had to digress.
A lack of unity was the natural result of a mind that
worked as his did and that was bounded in the artificial
structure Of a preface.

A strange sort of unity extends throughout the
works as a whole. Often Dryden promises in one essay
the subject of the next, as, in conversation, he would
say, "But, we'll talk about that tomorrow." He says
in the "Preface of All for Love":.

The occasion is fair, and the subject would
be pleasant to handle the difference of
styles betwixt him [Shakespeare] and Fletcher,
and wherein, and how far they are both to be
imitated. But since I must not be over con-
fident Of my own performance after him, it
will be prudence in me to be silent. ’
And that subject is one of the tOpics in the "Preface
to Troilus and Cressida" immediately following. On
many subjects such as Dryden's dream of an epic, his

ideas of wit, or his discussions of the imagination,

fancy and judgment, we might get an organized and

 

lIbid., I, 201.

147

unified essay simply by picking out what he says in all
of his essays and putting them together in one, but it
would have none of the charm and vitality of the separate
essays as Dryden wrote them.

It is true that Dryden's critical writings are
Often singularly inconsistent, even in his literary judg-
ments. For example, in the "Preface to the Fables" he
says that the Aeneis is "but a second part of the Iliag;
a continuation of the same story, and the persons
already formed," 1 an Opinion which he vehemently
attacked three years earlier in the "Dedication of the
Aeneis." Dryden's inconsistencies have generally been
deplored. Saintsbury says, "He sees, for the time being,
only the point which he has set himself to prove, and
is quite careless of the fact that he has proved some-
thing very different yesterday, and is very likely to
prove something different still tomorrow." 2

Dryden's ability to see different sides of a prob-
lem, his lack of dOgmatism, and his willingness to change
his mind are all virtues, not defects. As Mark Van

Doren points Out, "It is precisely to his unending

 

lIbid., II, 252.

2Saintsbury, Dryden, 99. cit., 79.

149

powers of renewal that we owe that serenity and that
freshness in which he never fails us." 1 Dryden him-
self wrote to the Earl of Mulgrave in the "Dedication
Of Aureng-Zebe":

I must be changeable; and sometimes the

gravest of us all are so, even upon ridicu-

lous accidents. Our minds are perpetually

wrought upon by the temperament of our bodies;

which makes me suspect they are nearer allied,

than either our philosOphers or school—divines

will allow them to be... . An ill dream,
or a cloudy day, has power to change this
wretched creature, who is so proud of a rea-
sonable soul, and make him think what he

thought not yesterday.

Besides his innumerable takings-off on subjects
that interested him, the general content of the prefaces
consists of accounts of difficulties encountered, apolo-
gies, panegyrics, answers to his latest lampoons, and
justifications against some imagined future criticism.
Self-confident and assured though he was, Dryden's
writings carry an air of being "picked on." In almost
all his prefaces he seems to anticipate his critics
and their criticism and to answer their imagined fault-
finding.

Of his Specific prefaces, "The Essay of Heroic

Plays" and the "Defence of the EpilOgue" are the best

——— __ ——

1Van Doren, 9p. cit., 29.
2Scott-Saintsbury, 99. £13., v, 199.

organized, although much of the former is conventional
and common-place. "The Defence of the Epilogue, or, an
Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age" is an
explanation of the superiority of the present times in
wit, language, and conversation; and, having set up
such a natural Outline, Dryden follows it fairly well.
The "Preface to Sylvae, or, the second part of Poetical
Miscellanies" gives a good, coherent and fairly organ-
ized theory of translation. However, in the prefaces
in which Dryden's prose style is at its best—-in the
"Dedication of the Spanish Friar," "Dedication of
Examen Poeticum, or, the Third Miscellany," and "Pre-
face to the Fables”--we see the free movement of the
poet's mind and speech, which, while largely the qual-
ity which makes them fine, is yet the quality that leads
to disorder.

"The Essay of Dramatic Poesy" is the only critical
essay that Dryden wrote which contains in itself its
reason for being. It is Dryden's most elaborate piece
of criticism and, as Johnson says, "laboured with that
diligence which he might allow himself somewhat to re-
mit, when his name gave sanction to his position, and
his awe of the public was abated, partly by custom

l

and partly by success. Since it is not a preface,

 

1Johnson, on. cit., #31.

*_

organized, although much of the former is conventional
and common-place. "The Defence of the EpilOgue, or, an
Essay on the Dramatic Poetry of the Last Age" is an
explanation of the superiority of the present times in
wit, language, and conversation; and, having set up
such a natural outline, Dryden follows it fairly well.
The "Preface to Sylvae, or, the second part of Poetical
Miscellanies" gives a good, coherent and fairly organ-
ized theory of translation. However, in the prefaces
in which Dryden's prose style is at its best-—in the
"Dedication of the Spanish Friar," "Dedication of
Examen Poeticum, or, the Third Miscellany," and "Pre—
face to the Fables"~~we see the free movement of the
poet's mind and speech, which, while largely the qual-
ity which makes them fine, is yet the quality that leads
to disorder.

"The Essay of Dramatic Poesy" is the only critical
essay that Dryden wrote which contains in itself its
reason for being. It is Dryden's most elaborate piece
of criticism and, as Johnson says, "laboured with that
diligence which he might allow himself somewhat to re-
mit, when his name gave sanction to his position, and
his awe of the public was abated, partly by custom

l

and partly by success. Since it is not a preface,

 

lJohnson, 9p. cit., l+31.

151

it has a structure of its own; and, although by its
nature variegated with successive representations of
Opposite views, it has, for Dryden, a large amount of
order and unity. It was written in dialOgue form,
however, and so still can be allowed occasionally the
digressions of conversation. "

On a whole, the tendency of Dryden's essays is
toward unity of a natural, organic sort rather than
toward an organized methodical develOpment. They
are rather a series of fairly lOgically connected ideas,
"forced from him" by association, than the develOpment

of one major theme statement.

Rhythm in Dryden's Prose
Dryden tells us in the "Dedication to the Rival
Ladies":
Shakespeare...was the first who, to shun the
pains of continual rhyming, invented that
kind of writing which.we call blank verse,
but the French, more prOperly, prose mesuree;
into which the English tongue so naturally
slides, that, in writing prose, it is hardly
to be avoided.
In perhaps no writer, however, do we find less
"prose mesurée" than in Dryden. It may be that he
was such a master of poetic rhythm, that he knew how

to avoid its parallel in prose; that, writing in

 

1Ker, 9p. cit., I, 6.

152

both harmonies, he was more clearly aware of their dif-
ferences. Then, too, his conversational tone could

not be preserved in prose of too definite a cadence.
Entirely unrhythmical prose is almost impossible. How-
ever, as Saintsbury says, 1 the conversational tone
excludes anything more than a hint at rhythm. Emphasis
is by meaning only, and well-bred conversation exacts
considerable runs of unemphatic and almost unaccented
syllables which can hardly be got into any rhythm,

certainly not into any rhythm capable of notation in
feet.

Dryden...sets himself to attain and does
attain in prose a manner in rhythm as in all
other ways, now easy, now forcible, now com—
bative, now playful, admirably suited for
narrative, and as admirably for exposition

or argument, but essentially conversational,
and, in virtue of that very quality, expressly
eschewing and almost ostentatiously abjuring
the complicated fugue-solos of the genera-
tion of his youth.........................

...and therefore it is that, except very
rarely, it would be, though quite possible,
almost superfluous to arrange Dryden's prose
in quantitative rhythm. It obeys Aristotle's
dictum: it is not arrythmical--very much the
reverse. But, except in a very few set
pieces like the great Shakespeare passage,
this rhythm is kept down to almost the mini-
mum, and where it appears it is very rarely
elaborated by any device except tge usual
balance and antithetic emphasis.

 

1Saintsbury, Histogy pf English Prose Rhythm, 9p.
cit., 231.

21bid., 229,232.

153

I have scanned the Shakespeare passage below. The

divisions are Saintsbury's; the quality marks are mine.

0 v -— u .2 - u u v o ._
To begin, then,|with Shakespeare.| He was the man‘
U U — — 9 v 9 - — U - U V II
who of all‘modern,land perhaps‘ancient poets,lhad the
- u v v v 0 - - - V V U U u
largestland most comprehensive'soul.l All the imageslof
Nature‘we're still‘pr'esevnt‘tvo h-im,\and he draw them,|
9 9 — U U U U — 0 U U 9 U — -— U 9
not laboriously,'but luckily;‘when he describes‘any thing,|
y‘Ou mO-re‘th'an s-ee it,|y‘Ou feel {t‘t‘O‘OJ Th‘Ose who a'cch-se
v u ._ g, _ u v v — v
himIto have wanted|learning,|gfve him\the greater‘
0 u - 9 v 0 -— v v to -- u u v u .—
commendationz| he was naturally‘learned;\he needed notl
V 0 v - v -- —- u -— -— v
the spectacles of bookslto realeature;‘he looked‘inwards,l
v — y — V v 9 — v 9 - I! U
and found herlthere.| I cannot say‘he is every where‘
9 - ._ u v v 0 — o .— v v v 9 — v
alike;'were he so,|I should do him'injurylto compare him,
9 U — v 9 V —' V U -- v V —"'
with the greatest'of mankind.’ He is many times'flat,|
D 0-. u I! — v — — U V U V U — v v
insipid;'his comiclwit'dEgenerating'into clenches,lhis
— V 9 - V V v v -- o v v -- v —
seriouslswelling'into bombast.‘ But he is alwayslgreat,|
v —. v - v v -— v V -' -- u
when some greatloccasion‘is presentedlto him;|no man]
0 - 9 — v V —- —- u U u —- v -—
can ssylhe ever'had E fit‘subject‘for his wit,|and did
u — —-I v u U _ U u U — U —- U
not‘then‘raise himself'as highlabove the rest‘of poets,l
Qpantum 1§nta solent inter viburna cupressi.
Notice the skillful variated rhythm of the parallels and

also the use of the "old Teuton monosyllables," soul,

too, there, gnd flat.

 

lKer, 9p. $13,, "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I,
79-80.

154

It must be remembered that the passage above was
probably one of the most carefully prepared passages in
Dryden's prose. It appears in the "Essay of Dramatic
Poesy" which was his most carefully written piece and it
was Dryden's first tribute to his great predecessor.

It is not written in the style of conversation; it has the
tone of a formal eulOgy. This was as rhythmatic as
Dryden's prose ever got, and even it is far from the

blank verse Of Browne and Milton.

Development of Dryden's Prose Practice
The question of whether Dryden's prose style changes
with the years is one on which students of Dryden's
style have disagreed. Saintsbury, Gosse, and Tilley
insist that it does; Ker, Eliot, and the two writers
of unpublished dissertations before mentioned say that
it does not.
Saintsbury says, of the essays after the "Essay of
Dramatic Poesy": I
These prefaces and dedications, however, even
where their matter is scarcely satisfactory,
show an evergrowing command of prose style,
and very soon the resipiscence of Dryden's

judgment, and the result of his regently re-
newed study of the older writers.

lSaintsbury, Dr den, pp. Qi§., 127.

155

Congreve says of Dryden, "His parts did not decline
with the years, but...he was an improving writer to
the last, even to near seventy years of age." 1

Ker, however, writes differently:

Dryden's prose remains in the "Preface to the

Fables" in 1700 essentially what it was in

the essay of 1668; no less 'airy and animated,’

and no more stately and dignified. 2
And Lester Cameron, in his unpublished dissertation on
Dryden's prose style, concludes:

The influences which formed the prose style

of Dryden must have accomplished their work

before 1664. No change of manner is evident

from the time he began to publish until 1700. 3

while it is true that Dryden's manner does not
change, I cannot agree that his style does not improve.
The tendencies shown in his earlier writings are improved
and made more pronounced in his later. His diction,
colloquial at first, becomes yet more colloquial; his
syntax becomes slightly more modern; his sentences,
inclined to be longer and more uniform at the begin-
ning of his writing, become more varied in length, but

generally shorter toward the end. His conceits, at times

labored in his earlier writings, become more free and

 

1Quoted in Mitford, 92. cit., cxl.

2

Ker, Qp. cit., I, xxvii.

3Lester Cameron, g Study 9; Dryden's Prose Style.

unpublished dissertation, University of‘Wisconsin,1938.
Quoted in Martin, 22. cit., 36.

 

156

spontaneous. The tendency to ramble which appears in
his early essays becomes his established form in the
later.

As Dryden gains experience, confidence, and judg-
ment, his prose becomes, in general, less self-conscious
and studied, and stronger and more free. It approaches
nearer and nearer to the ideal which he seems to have
set for it--care1essly natural and easy, but well-

bred, speech.

157

VI. TYPES OF PROSE
AND VARIETY OF STYLE TO TYPE

Naturally, within his general style of easy infor-
mality, Dryden varies the structure of his sentences to
fit his purposes, or rather, the sentences vary to suit
his needs. 'We find samples, however small, of almost
every type of writing in the essays: panegyric, char-
acter, narrative, didactic, argumentative, satiric, and
invective.

The panegyric serves Dryden's uses when he compli-
ments his patrons. A courtly profusion of compliments
was characteristic of the age, but Dryden usually
manages them with singular dignity. Once, however, he
balked. In the "Dedication of the Spanish Friar" to
Lord Haughton, whom Dryden must have reSpected a great
deal, he says this:

And now, my Lord, I must confess, that what I
have written looks more like a Preface, than

a Dedication; and truly it was thus far my
design, that I might entertain you with some—
what in my own art which might be more worthy
of a noble mind, than the stale exploded trick
of fulsome panegyrics. 'Tis difficult to write

justly on anything, but almost impossible in
praise. 1

 

lKer, 9p. cit., I, 249.

 

158

‘When Dryden wrote anything, though, he usually wrote
it well. Saintsbury calls Dryden "one of the most
accomplished flatters that ever lived," 1 and we must
agree with him. Dryden's style of flattery, however,
hardly sounds like him. It is much sleeker and more
studied and conventional; the sentences are complex,
and, although smoother, are more dull. The sweeping
flow of antithesis, the long, sustained sentences
ending in weak syllables or Open vowels shown in the
passage below are typical of Dryden's panegyric style:

The wishes and desires of all good men,
which have attended your Lordship from your
first appearance in the world, are at length
accomplished, in your obtaining those honours
and dignities which you have so long deserved.
There are no factions, though irreconcilable
to one another, that are not united in their
affection to you, and the reapect they pay
you. They are equally pleased in your pros-
perity, and would be equally concerned in your
afflictions. Titus Vespasian was not more the
delight of humankind. The universal Empire
made him only more known, and more powerful,
but could not make him more beloved. He had
greater ability of doing good, but your inclin-
ation to it is not less; and though you could
not extend your beneficence to so many persons,
yet you have lost as few days as that excel-
lent Emperor; and never had his complaint to
make when you went to bed, that the sun had
shone upon you in vain, when you had the
Opportunity of relieving some unhappy man.
This, my Lord, has justly acquired you as
many friends as there are persons who have the
honour to be known to you. Mere acquaintance

 

lsaintsbury, Dr den, 9p. cit., 7.

 

159

you have none; you have drawn them all into
a nearer line; and they who have conversed
with you are for ever after inviolably yours. 1

Much less genuine, but written in the same style,
is this from the "Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival
Ladies," written earlier, in 1664, which contains .
one of Dryden's few absurd conceits. Notice Dryden's
admirable use of antithesis again. This structure
was frequent in his prose of this type:

I can only say, in general, that the souls
of other men shine out at little crannies; a
they understand some one thing, perhaps,

to admiration, while they are darkened on
all the other parts; but your Lordship's
soul is an entire globe of light, breaking
out on every side; and, if I have only dis-
covered one beam of it, 'tis not that the
light falls unequally, but because the body,
which receives it, is of unequal parts.

 

Then, too, the prose of flattery may not seem the
real Dryden to us, as it most certainly was not, because
of his use of the sardonic which was so unnatural to
the man. His natural self-assurance often breaks out
in his complimentary style in a conversational light-
ness that makes one feel that Dryden too thinks he has
to stoop:

But since you are to bear this persecution,
I will at least give you the encouragement

 

1Ker, 9p, cit., "A Discourse Concerning the Original
and PrOgress of Satire," II, l5-l6.

2Ibid., I, 5.

160

of a martyr,--you could never suffer in a
nobler cause.

Alike in their praise but very different in their
sincerity and tone are Dryden's characters Of those
writers whom he admires. As we have seen, it is in
these more carefully prepared passages that definite
rhythm is often seen. The very famous praise to Shakes-
peare has been given. "I admire Fletcher, but I love
Shakespeare," 2Dryden has said, and we believe him,
for the passage proves it. The following encomium on
Chaucer from the "Preface to the Fables" should be
almost equally famous. As will be seen, it has much
the same tone of genuine tribute and careful wording.
Notice the careful placing of the parallels for a
rhythmic effect and the sentence endings--again
generally weak syllables or Open vowels. This prose
flows:

He must have been a man of a most wonder-
ful comprehensive nature, because, as it has
been truly Observed of him, he has taken into
the compass of his Canterbury Tales the vari-
ous manners and humours (as we now call them)
Of the whole English nation, in his age. Not
a single character has escaped him. All his
pilgrims are severally distinguished from
each other; and not only in their inclinations,
but in their very physiOgnomies and persons.

Baptiste Porta could not have described their
natures better, than by the marks which the

 

lIbid., "Preface to Annus Mirabilus," 10.

2Ibid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," 83.

161

poet gives them. The matter and manner of
their tales, and of their telling, are so
suited to their different educations, humours,
and callings, that each of them would be
imprOper in any other mouth. Even the grave
and serious characters are distinguished by
their several sorts of gravity: their dis-
courses are such as belong to their age,
their calling and their breeding; such as
are becoming of them, and of them only.

Some of his persons are vicious, and some
virtuous; some are unlearn'd or (as Chaucer
calls them) lewd, and some are learn'd.

Even the ribaldry of the low characters is
different: the Reeve, the Miller, and the
Cook, are several men, and distinguished
from each other as much as the mincing
Lady-Prioress and the broad-speaking, gap-
toothed'Wife of Bath. But enough of this;
there is such a variety of game Springing
up before me, that I am distracted in my
choice, and know not which to follow. 'Tis
sufficient to say, according to the proverb,
that here $1 god's plenty. 'We have our
forefathers and great-grand-dames all be-
fore us, as they were in Chaucer's days:
their general characters are still re-
maining in mankind, and even in England,
though they are called by other names than
thoselof Monks,land Friars,land Canons,land
Lady Abbesses,\and Nuns;\for mankind is ever
the same, and nothing lost out of Nature,
though everything is altered.

Dryden did not write narrative prose. In a very
few passages, however, he has given us a sample of
how he might have written it if he had chosen that
type. The following passage has long and flowing
sentences. It might almost be said to be "quiet"

prose. Although we do not hear the cannon he speaks

lIbid., "Preface to the Fables," II, 262-263.

162

of, we do hear the "depth of silence" in the city.
Dryden creates this impression by his use of Open

vowels and nasal and liquid consonants and of long
sentences with clause piled upon clause:

It was that memorable day, in the first
summer of the late war, when our navy engaged
the Dutch; a day wherein the two most mighty
and best appointed fleets which any age had
ever seen, diaputed the command of the greater
half of the globe, the commerce of nations,
and the riches of the universe. ‘While these
vast floating bodies, on either side, moved
against each other in parallel lines, and
our countrymen, under the happy conduct of
his Royal Highness, went breaking, by little
and little, into the line of the enemies;
the noise of the cannon from both navies
reached our ears about the City, so that
all men being alarmed with it, and in a
dreadful suspense of the event which.we knew
was then deciding, every one went following
the sound as his fancy led him; and leaving
the town almost empty, some took towards
the park, some cross the river, others down
it; all seeking the noise in the depth of
silence.

Dryden did not often take the didactic tone; he

was usually too personal to maintain it for long.

This passage, however, shows him at his lecturing best,

unemotional, impersonal, organized and clear. The

short sentences which follow the longer sentences of

explanation help create the convincing tone:

All translation, I suppose, may be reduced
to these three heads.

 

lIbid., "An Essay of Dramatic Poesy," I, 28.

First, that of metaphrase, or turning
an author word by word, and line by line, from
one language into another. Thus, or near this
manner, was Horace his £33 9: gggtgy trans-
lated by Ben Johnson. The second way is that
of paraphrase, or translation with latitude,
where the author is kept in view by the trans-
lator, so as never to be lost, but his words
are not so strictly followed as his sense;
and that too is admitted to be amplified,
but not altered. Such is Mr. Waller's trans-
lation of Virgil's Fourth ggpggg. The third
way is that of imitation, where the trans-
lator (if now he has not lost that name)
assumes the liberty, not only to vary from
the words and sense, but to forsake them
both as he sees occasion; and taking only
some general hints from the original, to
run division on the grounddwork, as he pleases.
Such is Mr. Cowley's practice in turning
the two Odes of Pindar, and one of Horace,
into English.

Argumentative writing seems to occupy most of
Dryden's prose. Many critics have been able to write
their criticism in the almost impersonal didactic style
above. Not so with Dryden, who is always at his best
in controversy. If he has no controversy or no antag-
onist, he sets one up to argue against. At times he
seems to prove his point, not by its excellencies, but
by the defects of its Opposing view. The liveliest
passages in his prose are those in which he tries, and
finds wanting, the ideas with which he disagrees.
Dryden argues with conviction. The statements are short.
They begin forcibly and end hard. Often questions are
used to vary the sharp endings and to add a tone of

reasonableness to the style. It is rapid prose.

 

lIbid., "Preface to the Translation of Ovi 's Epis-
tles," 237.

164

Here Dryden is arguing for tragedy against comedy:

I do not dispute the preference Of Tragedy;
let every man enjoy his taste: but 'tis un-
just, that they, who have not the least
notion of heroic writing, should therefore
condemn the pleasure which others receive
from it, because they cannot comprehend it.
Let them please their appetites in eating
what they like; but let them not force
their dish on all the table. They, who
would combat general authority with partic-
ular Opinion, must first establish them-
selves a reputation of understanding better
than other men. Are all the flights of
Heroic Poetry to be concluded bombast, un-
natural, and mere madness, because they are
not affected with their excellencies? It is
just as reasonable as to conclude there is
no day, because a blind man cannot dis-
tinguish of light and colours. Ought they
not rather, in modesty, to doubt Of their
own judgments, when they think this or

that expression in Homer, Virgil, Tasso,

or Milton's Paradise, to be too far strained,
than positively to conclude that 'tis all
fustian, and mere nonsense? 'Tis true,
there are limits to be set betwixt the
boldness and rashness of a poet; but he
must understand those limits who pretends
to judge as well as he who undertakes to
write: and he who has no liking to the
whole, ought, in reason, to be excluded
from censuring of the parts. He must be'a
lawyer before he mounts the tribunal; and
the judicature of one court, too, does not
qualify a man to preside in another. He
may be an excellent pleader in the Chancery,
who is not fit to rule the Common Pleas.
But I will presume for once to tell them,
that the boldest strokes of poetry, when
they are managed artfully are those which
most delight the reader. 1

And in this passage for the epic poem against tragedy,
he is arguing against the side he took above. Again he

 

1Ibid., "The Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry
and Poetic Licence,” 182-183.

 

165

uses questions. Notice the sharp contrast between the
first sentence, eloquent and noble with its parallel
structure building up to a dramatic period, and the
sentence following, short and quick'with hard 3;; and
hissing g;g_echoing the scorn the meaning shows. Notice
too the repeated emphasis of the nouns throughout the
passage:

To raise, and afterwards to calm the pas-
sions-~to purge the soul from pride, by the
examples of human miseries, which befall the
greatest--in few words, to expel arrOgance,
and introduce compassion, are the great effects
of tragedy. Great, I must confess, if they
were altogether as true as they are pompous.
But are habits to be introduced at three hours'
warning? are radical diseases so suddenly
removed? A mountebank may promise such a
cure, but a skilful physician will not under-
take it. An epic poem is not in so much haste:
it works leisurely; the changes which it makes
are slow; but the cure is likely to be more
perfect. The effects of tragedy, as I said,
are too violent to be lasting. If it be
answered that, for this reason, tragedies are
often to be seen, and the dose to be repeated,
this is tacitly to confess that there is more
virtue in one heroic poem than in many trage-
dies. A man is humbled one day, and his pride
returns the next. Chymical medicines are ob-
served to relieve oftener than to cure: for
'tis the nature of spirits to make swift im-
pressions, but not deep. Galenical decoctions,
so which I may prOperly compare an epic poem,
have more of body in them; they work by their
substance and their weight. It is one reason
of Aristotle's to prove that Tragedy is more
noble, because it turns to a shorter compass;
the whole action being circumscribed within
the space of four-and-twenty hours. He might
prove as well that a mushroom is to be pre-
ferred before a peach, because it shoots up
in the compass of a night. A chariot may

166

be driven around the pillar in less space than
a large machine, because the bulk is not so
great. Is the Moon a more noble planet than
Saturn, because she makes her revolution in
less than thirty days, and he in little less
than thirty years?

In the following passage, Dryden has just finished,

by the power of his logic, proving that Horace is

greater than Juvenal. His feelings, however, (always

ultimately Dryden's last and highest authority) revolt

at this, so he argues against the reasoning his judg-

ment has set up. Here Dryden uses a string of short

clauses beginning with g3, Techniques such as this

give his prose an air of direct simplicity, and at

the same time emphasize the comparison.

This last consideration seems to incline
the balance on the side of Horace, and to
give him the preference to Juvenal, not only
in profit, but in pleasure. But, after all,
I must confess, that the delight which
Horace gives me is but languishing. Be
pleased still to understand, that I speak
of my own taste only: he may ravish other
men; but I am too stupid and insensible to
be tickled. ‘Where he barely grins himself,
and, as Scaliger says, only shows his white
teeth, he cannot prOkae me to any laughter.
His urbanity, that is, his good manners, are
to be commended, but his wit is faint; and
his salt, if I may dare to say so, almost
insipid. Juvenal is of a more vigorous and
masculine wit; he gives me as much pleasure
as I can bear; he fully satisfies my expec-
tation; he treats his subject home: his
Spleen is raised, and he raises mine: I

 

llbid., "Dedication of the Aeneis," II, 158.

167

have the pleasure of concernment in all he
says; he drives his reader along with him;
and when he is at the end of his way I wil-
lingly stOp with him. If he went another
stage, it would be too far; it would make a
journey of a progress, and turn delight into
fatigue. 'When he gives over, it is a sign
the subject is exhausted, and the wit Of man
can carry it no further.

Dryden's can hardly be called impassioned writing,
however. After all, it is his common sense that makes
pleasure the highest criterion of literature. He is
more apt to show his pleasure and enthousiasm than
his baser and more personal emotions. In his ”Defence
of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy," nevertheless, when he
is angry at Sir Robert Howard who had answered the
essay, the sentences are shorter and the whole tone of
the style is brisker and quicker. Dryden sounds hurt:

For I confess my chief endeavours are to de-
light the age in which I live. If the humour
of this be for low comedy, small accidents,
and raillery, I will force my genius to Obey
it, though with more reputation I could write
in verse. I know I am not so fitted by nature
to write comedy: I want that gaiety of humour
which is required to it. My conversation is
slow and dull; my humour saturnine and reserved:
in short, I am nore of those who endeavor to
break jests in company, or make reparties. So
that those, who decry my comedies, do me no
injury, except it be in point of profit: repu-
tation in them is the last thing to which I
shall pretend. 2

 

lIbid., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
PrOgress of Satire," II, 84.

 

2Ibid., I, 116.

168

In his prose as in his poetry, Dryden reigns supreme
in satire. In his satiric prose, though the meaning is
subtle, there is a slap in the sound as well as the
meaning of every sentence. Perhaps we may here con-
sider Dryden's own ideas of satire, which, it must be
noted, are as clear and interesting to us today as
though they had been in our time. This passage may
also serve to show how skillfully Dryden uses paral-
lelism in his passages of explanation:

How easy is it to call rogue and villain, and
that wittily: But how hard to make a man
appear a fool, a blockhead, or a knave, with-
out using any of those approbrious terms! To
Spare the grossness of the names, and to do

the thing yet more severely, is to draw a full
face, and to make the nose and cheeks stand
out, and yet not to employ any depth of shad-
owing. This is the mystery Of that noble trade,
which yet no master can teach to his apprentice;
he may give the rules, but the scholar is

never the nearer in his practice. Neither is
it true, that this fineness of raillery is
offensive. A witty man is tickled while he is
hurt in this manner, and a fool feels it not.
The occasion of an offence may possibly be
given, but he cannot take it. If it be granted
that in effect this way does more mischief;
that a man is secretly wounded, and though

he be not sensible himself, yet the malicious
world will find it out for him; yet there is
still a vast difference betwixt the slovenly
butchering of a man, and the fineness of a
stroke that separates the head from the body,
and leaves it standing in its place.

 

11bid., "A Discourse Concerning the Original and
Progress of Satire," II, 92-93.

169

And to sample the fineness of Dryden's stroke, let us
hear him when he speaks of Milbourne, a fellow trans-
lator of Virgil. Notice that the sentences are fairly
long, and so give a feeling of leisurely, scornful

ease. It is almost impossible to read satiric passages
from Dryden aloud without slipping into the aloof,

good humored tone in which Dryden wrote them. The prose

itself has an upward lift:

I am satisfied, however, that, while he and I
live together, I shall not be thought the worst
poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired
him underhand to write so ill against me; but
upon my honest word I have not bribed him to
do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of
his pamphlet. 'Tis true, I should be glad if
I could persuade him to continue his good
offices, and write such another critique on
anything of mine; for I find, by experience,
he has a great stroke with the reader, when

he condemns any of my poems, to make the world
have a better Opinion of them. He has taken
some pains with my poetry; but nobody will be
persuaded to take the same with his. 1

And again, of Sir Robert Howard, in the "Defence
of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy," after Dryden has re-
covered from his anger in the passage quoted above:

But these are now to be no faults; for
ten days after his book is published, and
that his mistakes are grown so famous, that
they are come back to him, he sends his
Errata to be printed, and annexed to his
play; and desires, that, instead of shuttin ,

 

lIbid., "Preface to the Fables," 271.

170

you would read 0 enin , which, it seems, was
the printer's fault. I wonder at his modesty,
that he did not rather say it was Seneca's

or mine; and that, in some authors, reserare
was to shut as well as to 0 en, as the word
barach, say the learned, is both to bless

and curse.

Well, since it was the printer, he was a
naughty man to commit the same mistake twice
in six lines: I warrant you delectus verborum,
for placing anwords, was his mistake too,
though the author forgot to tell him of it:
if it were my book, I assure you I would.

For those rascals ought to be the proxies of
every gentleman author, and to be chastised
for him, when he is not pleased to own an
error. Yet since he has given the Errata,

I wish he would have enlarged them only a

few sheets more, and then he would have spared
me the labour of an answer; for this cursed
printer is so given to mistakes, that there

is scarce a sentence in the preface without
some false grammar, or hard sense in it; which
will all be cleared upon the poet, because

he is so good-natured as to lay but three
errors to the printer's account, and to take
the rest upon himself, who is better able to
support them. But he needs not apprehend that
I should strictly examine those little faults,
except as I am called upon to do it: I shall
return therefore to that quotation of Seneca,
and answer1 not to what he writes, but to what
he means.

‘With such an able weapon as his satiric blade, we
would suppose Dryden would never have to resort to
calling a man "a fool, a blockhead, or a knave." we
‘Ne find a few passages, however, of invective, the

most dangerous of moods and most rapidly out of date.

 

lIbid., I, 117-118.

171

Dryden manages it so well that this paragraph might,
with very few changes, have been written today. Unlike
the satiric passages quoted above, this prose has a
downward trend. The use of words like most, forever,
and consciences at the ends of the sentences help create
this feeling. Long Open sounds throughout such as those
in blggg, money, too, often, colours, look, golden, 29,
£33, and blockheads combine to create the impression of
heaviness.

No government has ever been, or ever can be,
wherein timeservers and blockheads will not
be uppermost. The persons are only changed,
but the same jugglings in State, the same
hypocrisy in religion, the same self-interest
and mismanagement, will remain for ever.
Blood and money will be lavished in all ages,
only for the preferment of new faces, with
old consciences. There is too often a jaundice
in the eyes of great men; they see not those
whom they raise in the same colours with
other men. All whom they affect look golden
to them, when the gilding is only in their
own distempered sight. 1

There are no exalted passages in Dryden. He seems
to have turned to the harmony of poetry for his highest
strains. As Saintsbury points out, 2 we can only guess
what things like the Opening of WReligio Laici,” the
"Consideration of Life" in Aurenggggbe, the passage of
the wandering fires in the "Hind and the Panter," and

others would have been like in prose.

 

11b1d., "Dedication of Examen Poeticum," II, 2.

 

2Saintsbury, History 9; English grose Rhythm, op, cit.,

289.

172

Although Dryden's only notable prose writings are
his critical essays, it is plain from the passages
above that it was not limited ability that kept him
from trying other prose forms. The variety shown
above would have made him an excellent prose writer

in whatever form he chose to write.

 

A' Ft) «0- ‘ u

'L

173

VII. CONCLUSION

English prose as Dryden found it was individual-
istic and impractical. In the hands of the great mas-
ters, it was capable of producing great literature; in
the hands of the common journalists, it was an impos-
sible tool. By 1700, when Dryden died, a general
standard suitable for everyday use had been set up.

If any one man can be said to be responsible for
this, that man is John Dryden. ‘Writing as a means to
an end, with a strong genius for language, he took
the tendencies of his time toward a more usable prose
style, filtered them with his tremendous sanity, and
produced what can be called the first really modern
prose.

Dryden's prose style is pliant, natural and
conversational. It is clear and simple and has a
certain robust strength and dignity. Reading Dryden,
one is almost always conscious of the fact that he is
listening to a keen and quick mind, but a mind that
is working honestly and naturally, not studying and
laboring over which is the "right” way the thing should
be said. He brought his readers into his prose and

talked with them. There are no soliloquies in Dryden.

174

Communication of his ideas about writing and writers
was his first, and almost his only aim.

His modernity lies especially in his diction and
his choice of imagery. Dryden had an unusual aptitude
for choosing what was neither too pedantic nor too
familiar. He took as his standard the speech of the
wellebred gentleman of his time, and we can safely
say that that speech is not much changed.

His sentence structure, too, broke away from the
earlier sentence style which featured long, compli-
cated sentences with many subordinate clauses, latin-
ized structures, and heavy balance and antithesis.
Dryden's sentences are shorter, less complex and less
formal.

Because of his position as the dominant literary
figure of his age and because his style filled a need
and filled it well, his prose became the standard
which.was to be modified and still more perfected in
the succeeding century. It is still, not only the
first, but also one of the best examples of "plain
talk"--of lucid, simple, conversational prose, suit-

able for almost every purpose.

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Editions QEDDryden's Works

 

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& Son .9 1800.

 

 

 

Scott. Sir walter (ed. ). The Works Of John Dryden. re-
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Yonge. C. D. (ed.). Essays 9£_John Dryden. London & New
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311%-.
'

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