Now give the hautboys breath; he comes, he For pity melts the mind to love. 70 80 90 100 The many rend the skies with loud applause; Who caused his care, 110 And sighed and looked, sighed and looked, 6 King of the Persians. 7 A soft, pathetic mode of Grecian music. CHORUS. 149 SONG FROM THE INDIAN EMPEROR. Ah fading joy! how quickly art thou past! Yet we thy ruin haste. As if the cares of human life were few, And the king seized a flambeau with zeal to And follow fate, that does too fast pursue. CHRONOS. (Horns, or hunting music within. From the opera Albion and Albanius, 1685. 1 Anciently the highest divinity, who presided over 2 The god of time; ruler of the world before Zeus. 3 The personification of mockery. Enter DIANA. DIANA. With horns and with hounds I waken the day, I tuck up my robe, and am buskined soon, 30 MARS. And chase the wild goats o'er summits of Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; rocks, Through all the world around, Sound a reveille, sound, sound, The warrior god is come. Chorus of all. Sound the trumpet, beat the drum; Through all the world around, Sound a reveille, sound, sound, The warrior god is come. MOMUS. Thy sword within the scabbard keep, Better the world were fast asleep, 60 The fools are only thinner, With all our cost and care; For things are as they were. 50 But neither side a winner, Enter VENUS. Calms appear when storms are past; Nature is my kindly care; Chorus of all. Take her, take her, while you may, Venus comes not every day. CHRONOS. The world was then so light, I scarcely felt the weight; Joy ruled the day, and Love the night. 80 90 But, since the Queen of Pleasure left the ground, I faint, I lag, And feebly drag The ponderous orb around. 7 morning call MOMUS. (Pointing to Diana, All, all, of a piece throughout: Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. JANUS. "Tis well an old age is out. CHRONOS. And time to begin a new. All, all of a piece throughout: Thy chase had a beast in view; Thy wars brought nothing about; Thy lovers were all untrue. "Tis well an old age is out, And time to begin a new. (To Mars. the beauties and faults of other poets, but only indulged himself in the luxury of writing; and perhaps knew it was a fault but hoped the reader would not find it. For this reason, though he must always be thought a great poet, he is no longer esteemed a good writer; and for ten impressions, which his works have had in so many successive years, yet at present a hundred books are scarcely purchased once a twelvemonth; for, as my last Lord Rochester 100 said, though somewhat profanely, “Not being of God, he could not stand.' (To Venus. Chaucer followed nature everywhere, but was never so bold to go beyond her, and there is a great difference of being poeta and nimis poeta, if we believe Catullus, as much as betwixt a modest behaviour and affectation. The verse of Chaucer, I confess, is not harmonious to us; but 't is like the eloquence of one whom Tacitus commends, it was auribus istius temporis accommodata: they who lived with him, (Dance of huntsmen, nymphs, warriors, and and some time after him, thought it musical; lovers.) ON CHAUCER. FROM THE PREFACE TO THE FABLES.* It remains that I say somewhat of Chaucer in particular. and it continues so even in our judgment, if compared with the numbers of Lydgate and Gower, his contemporaries; there is the rude sweetness of a Scotch tune in it, which is natural and pleasing though not perfect. "Tis true I cannot go so far as he who published the last edition of him,5 for he would make us In the first place, as he is the father of Eng- believe the fault is in our ears, and that there lish poetry, so I hold him in the same degree were really ten syllables in a verse where we of veneration as the Grecians held Homer or find but nine; but this opinion is not worth the Romans Virgil. He is a perpetual foun-confuting; 't is so gross and obvious an error tain of good sense, learned in all sciences, that common sense (which is a rule in everyand therefore speaks properly on all subjects. thing but matters of faith and revelation) As he knew what to say, so he knows also when must convince the reader that equality of numto leave off; a continence which is practised by bers in every verse which we call heroic? few writers, and scarcely by any of the was either not known or not always practised ancients, excepting Virgil and Horace. One in Chaucer's age. It were an easy matter to of our late great poets1 is sunk in his reputa- | produce some thousands of his verses which tion because he could never forgive any conceit which came in his way, but swept, like a dragnet, 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. All this proceeded, not from any want of knowledge, but of judg ment. Neither did he want that in discerning The Fables, published in 1700, the last year of Dryden's life, were metrical translations, or rather paraphrases, of stories from Homer, Ovid, Boccaccio, and Chaucer. The Preface, in addition to being excellent criticism, is a good example of Dryden's style in prose--the modern English prose which he did so much toward regulating (Eng. Lit., 166-167). This particular example is characterized by Mr. George Saintsbury as "forcible without the slightest effort, eloquent without declamation, graceful yet thoroughly manly." are lame for want of half a foot and sometimes a whole one, and which no pronunciation can make otherwise.† We can only say that he lived in the infancy of our poetry, and that nothing is brought to perfection at the first. We must be children before we grow men. There was an Ennius, and in process of time Abraham Cowley, who could not "forgive" (i. e. give up, forego) strained fancies and distorted forms of expression. 1 2 New printings. 3 "Overmuch a poet" (said by Martial, not Catul- 4 "Suited to the ears of that time." 7 The iambic pentameter couplet (see Eng. Lit., Dryden did not understand Chaucer's pronunciation nor sufficiently allow for imperfections in the manuscripts. |