LIBRARY 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 RIVERSIDE ^
 
 The Rise of 
 Classical English Criticism 
 
 ^ 
 
 A History of the Canons of English Literary Taste 
 
 and Rhetorical Doctrine, from the Beginning of 
 
 English Criticism to the Death of Dryden 
 
 ^ 
 
 BY 
 
 JAMES ROUTH, Ph. D., 
 
 Assistant Professor of En*;lish in Tulane Uni\-ersity 
 
 NEW ORLEANS: 
 
 TULANE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 19 15
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGB 
 
 Preface - 5 
 
 Chapter I: The Rule of L,aw lo 
 
 Chapter II: The Purpose of I^iterary Art 27 
 
 Chapter'III: Types of Literature . 47 
 
 Chapter IV: Material Suitable for L,iterature 54 
 
 Chapter V: Style — 7a 
 
 Chapter Vi: Verse Technique 98
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 111 in1v()(luc-iiig \c, II10 r(>:iii('r l!ic f<)llo\^ iiiir duiplers: uu tlu; 
 histoi-y of critici^ini. I wish ;i1 Uic oulsel to cxlriid l!i;iiilcs Ic llic 
 o<li1or> of tlie Eh(jU<che Sludun -iiiii Ilic .lonniai of I\iigli>li ami 
 (ji inuDiir Philology for ixn'iiiissioii to reprint two cliaiiltns that 
 origiuaily appeared in those journals; also to tlie editor of Anglia 
 lor similar i)eriiiission in regard to anotlier (riiaptiT wliieh is to 
 appear in that journal. I also wish to acknowledge my indclit- 
 eduess to Professor James Bright and 10 Ihe hil.' I'lofes-or 
 Aleee Fortier. who read the work in inanuseript.
 
 PREFACE : 
 THE LIMITS OF THE DISCUSSION 
 
 At the outsot of any discussion on literary criticism, it is 
 necessary to create certain definitions of the word criticism. The 
 definitions in use are inade(juate. To appreciate this fact, one 
 need onl\' read through the incoherent and nebulous masses of 
 material wliich constitute the three volumes of Professor Saints- 
 bury 's History of Criticism.^ In those volumes the reader will 
 find philosophy, history, criticism and literature ; but he will 
 not in any of them find out definitely what literary criticism is, 
 or even what the author conceives it to be. As a consequence 
 lic never knows, in leading the books, precise!}' what, to use a 
 good Americanism, the author is driving at. 
 
 Miss Wylie's little volume,- as admirable as it is in the pre- 
 cision of its bare facts, suffers from the same defect. Even the 
 Oxford series of critical essays^ suffer from a similar haziness 
 of purpose. The first two volumes open with an introduction 
 that is by far the sanest thing jet done in this field;* and the 
 essays are fairly uniform in type, though the collection does 
 include, as the editor himself points out, such diverse writers as 
 
 1. Blackwood, and Dodd, Mead &r Co., 1904. 3 vols. 
 1. Blackwood, and Dodd, Moad & Co., 1904. 3 vols. 
 
 3. Smith, Gregory. Elizabethan Critical Essays. (2 vols.), 1904. 
 Spingarn, J. E. Critical Essays of the Seventeenth Century. (3 toIs), 
 1908, 1909. 
 
 Ker, W. P. Essays of Dryden. (2 vols.), 1900. 
 
 4. A few errors may, however, be noted in Mr. Smith's treatise. On page 
 xxiii, it is stated that one point in the Elizabethan defense of poetry was an appeal 
 to its divine origin. Note 3 gives as authority Kir Philii) Sidney ; but the passage 
 of Sidney to which reference is made is wholly skeptical as to the divine pretensions 
 of classical poetry; while the allusion to the I'salnis nowise identifies the divinity as 
 derived from the fact that they are written in verse. Note 4: Mr. Smith says "He 
 [the poet] is possessed of the Platonic furor" — that is, in the Elizabethan conception. 
 But Note 4, which is adduced to support tliis, refers to a passage which reads: "And 
 this science [poetry] in his perfection cannot grow but by some divine instinct — 
 the Platonics call it furor; or [note the qualification] by excellency of nature and 
 complexion, or" — by subtlety, etc. Note (i : "Homer's poems were \Yritten "from a 
 free fury.'" Chapman is the authority. But Chapman says: "Homer's poems 
 were written from a free fury, an absolute and full soul, Virgil's out of a courtlv, 
 laborious and altcigether imitative spirit." This scarcely proves that Chapman adduced 
 divine origin in defence of poetry. ■ 
 
 —5—
 
 n The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 •('m' p»Hl:'.£r<'2ieal Ascham, the fire-eater Nash, who can only by a 
 ^rcat stretcli of the Avord he eaHed critical at all, and the rheto- 
 rici.n'n Piittenhani. But the following; volumes of the Oxford 
 series tliat deal Avith the seventeenth century are less uniform, 
 and admit almost any sort of prose that happens to talk about lit- 
 erature, regardless of whether it does or does not embody real 
 evaluations or the enunciation of principles. The w'ork of 
 ITamelius"' is more uniform, but treats the critical writings 
 rather as literary essays than as the embodiment of principles; 
 so that the work is a literary history rather than an analysis of 
 principles. To this last class of writings belongs also another 
 admirable piece of work by Mr. Wm. E. Bohn,^ which treats of 
 Dryden's criticism. Having centered the attention upon th'* 
 clironological development of Dryden's own views during his 
 lifetime, the author makes his work what we may — distorting 
 the phrase, historical criticism — call biographical criticism. Be- 
 bertag's article on Dryden'' is also prevailingly literary in its 
 treatment. ]\Ir. Spingarn's History of Literary Criticism in the 
 Renaissance^ defines criticism much as it is defined below. Owing 
 to Mr. Spingarn's sketchy treatment of this field, however, 
 there is here but little duplication of his work. Dr. Klein's 
 Literary Criticism from the Elizabethan Dramatists^ is more de- 
 tailed in character, but narrow in scope, confining itself as it 
 does to the opinions of the dramatists themselves; it is also 
 clumsy in treatment, but has the merit of preserving the same 
 rational definition of his subject and his purpose. 
 
 ^Mr. Louis Sigmund Friedland. in his treatise on The Dramatic 
 Unities in England,^" treats criticism as a series of theoretical 
 points rather than as a series of men Avho wrote on the subject. 
 Some of Mr. P^riedland's facts are reproduced here for the sake 
 of completeness. But his discussion covers only a small portion 
 of critical theory. And in the way of a definition of criticism 
 as a whole, it does not lielp us mucli in our present difficulty. 
 
 5. Die Crit. in d. enij. Lit. den xcii it. xviii Jahrh. Leipzig: Th. Grieben, 1897. 
 
 0. "The Development of Dryden"s Literary Criticism." Pub. Mod. Lang. 
 Aig'ii'., XX ii. 56. 
 
 7. -Drydens Tlicorie dcs Dramas.' Eng. Stud, IV, 373. 
 
 «. >r:icmilliin (Colunil.'ia I'niv. Prpss), 1899. 
 
 U. Stiircis & Walton. 19 Id. 
 
 10. Jour, of En-j .and Otriii. J'hiloL, X. .56, 280. 453.
 
 The Ijyyiits of the Piscussion 7 
 
 Anotlior .similar discussion of ;i liiuilcd phase of the subject, 
 Mhieh apix'ai's to assume, (liougli a little vaj^uely, the same 
 definition of criticism is Professor Arthur J. Tieje's T]ie Critical 
 Heritage of Fiction in 1579.^^ 
 
 Since tlien there is no definition of tlie subject that is fixed 
 by usage, I venture to frame one similar to Mr. Spingam's, 
 Avhich — even if it be acceptable to no one but the author — will 
 at least serve to set definite limits to the work in hand. Accord- 
 ing to this definition, the science of criticism is the same as the 
 science of rhetoric in its largest sense ; and the history of criticism 
 is the historj' of rhetorical principles as they have changed from 
 century to century, and grown in changing. This definition ex- 
 cludes from our present treatment all essays that criticise par- 
 ticular books merely by applying to them accepted criteria. It 
 includes, however, reviews of such nature if they serve to make 
 critical — oi' rhetorical — principles clearer to us by showing how 
 such principles are applied. It includes all essays which in any 
 part enunciate or explain principles. 
 
 Besides limiting the subject in this manner, I have ventured 
 upon further simplification. A treatise which touched upon all 
 the minor vagaries of taste that have appeared in historj- might 
 have historical value; but for any other purpose it would be not 
 only useless but pernicious. The canons of taste which are to 
 us things of vital import, and which in the last analysis are 
 historieally significant, are those which have either proved their 
 fitness by surviving, or have risen in their own times to such im- 
 l)ortanee as to influence the greater masterpieces of those times. 
 By authority of this limitation, the discussion is restricted to 
 the greater critics, that is to those who are universally recognized 
 as such liy Iheir contemporaries or by later historians. 
 
 Still another simplification has been introduced. All criti- 
 cism, even the best, is more or less infected with platitude. Ben 
 Jonson, for example, writes:^- "First, we require in our poet, 
 or maker, a goodness of natural wit. For whereas all other arts 
 consist of doctrine and precepts, the poet must be able by nature 
 and instinct to pour out tlie treasure of his mind." Such things 
 not only may be omitted. Tiiey must be omitted from any dis- 
 
 11. Ent/. t:tud., XLVII, 3, p. 415. 
 
 12. Timber, or Dincoverivs.
 
 6 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 •.i«-:ioD wliich aims to extract the livinj? portion of criticism 
 --'•111 tlie dead debris with which all books are more or less en- 
 (•unil>erpd. Of such nature is the l)ulk of the contents of most 
 text-books on rhetoric, including the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 century works of such nature. 
 
 A restriction has also been put upon the subject in the mat- 
 ter of date. English criticism, in its earlier period, shows a most 
 interesting development. Prom the beginning, to the end of 
 Dryden's career there is almost unbroken development with few 
 pauses, little retrogression and no backwaters. After Dryden, 
 criticism continued a career which was alive and which carried 
 on traditions without break. But it ceased to grow. The awe of 
 the great critic's fame seemed to dry up all springs of originality. 
 His doctrines with but slight changes became dogmas, and were 
 handed down in such form until the daring spirits among the 
 Romanticists finally threw them overboard in the latter years 
 of the eighteenth century. ^^ This account of the rise of classical 
 criticism begins then with the beginning of English criticism, 
 in the second half of the sixteenth century," and ends with 
 the year 1700, when the last of the important essays of Dryden 
 appeared, just before his death. 
 
 The points taken up are treated chronologically, except where 
 note is specifically made to the contrary. That is, one canon is 
 traced throughout the whole period before being dropped for 
 anotlier. The reader will in consequence be continually shift- 
 ing backward and forward over a centurj- or more ; but this has 
 proved less confusing than a shifting from canon to canon in 
 the effoi't to trace all at once. 
 
 The discussion will, in general, ignore sources. To trace 
 canons back to their Greek. French or earlier English originals 
 is not the purpose of this treatise. The thing that concerns us here 
 is knowledge of what canons of art men held during the period 
 we riiv to consider, and knowledge of how the body of canons 
 grew by the addition of new laws, or was i)urified by the discard- 
 ing of outworn ones. AVliether these canons were borrowed by 
 
 y.'.. To appreciate keenly this lifelessness. one has oiil.v fo read the slig)it re- 
 fleriions iif Shnftpsljury. one of the era's be«t f\\\V<. and compare their tenuous 
 vi)lul/;!ity wilh the str<-n;:ih and sanity of Dryden or r^ir I'liilip Sidney. 
 
 1-1. Sainisbur; . Vol 11. v. 14."> .1 xt-q. Also lb , p. 148. Xnle 2.
 
 The Limits of the Discussion 9 
 
 their advocatas or were original is extraneous here, however im- 
 portant in itself. The mere fact that Jonson or Dryden held or 
 advocated a principle marks that principle as a part of theo- 
 retical English literary law, whether or no it came originally 
 from the French or the ancients. 
 
 Throughout, the spelling of the quotations is modernized. No 
 textual questions are involved, and the older spelling distracts 
 attention from the substance. In the footnotes, Sm. is used 
 for references to essays in Mr. Gregory Smith's collection; Sp. 
 refers to IVIr. Spingarn 's collection of seventeenth century essays, 
 K. to Mr. Ker's edition of Dryden 's criticism. 
 
 James Routh. 
 
 New Orleans, May 1, 1915.
 
 CHAPTER I: THE RULE OF LAW 
 
 ]\rr. Spingarn calls the mechanical universe of Locke and 
 Hobbes the basis of seventeenth century criticism. Philosophy, 
 hov.ever, as James told us, even logic, is a way of looking at 
 things. And it is hard to avoid the conclusion that Locke and 
 Hobbes looked at things the way they did because the age was one 
 of classicism, and that the classical conception did not originate 
 with the philosophers. The conclusion is strengthened by the fact 
 that seventeenth century criticism can be traced back to Eliza- 
 bethan classical criticism on the one hand — which flourished in 
 a time when there were no conceptions of a mechanical universe — 
 and to the theories of the French on the other. In fact, Dry den 's 
 criticism, and for that matter the whole age in which he lived, 
 is historically intelligible only upon the supposition that it is 
 a cross between Ben Jonson's England and Corneille's France. 
 And Ben Jonson preceded Locke and Hobbes, while Corneille 
 Avas probably imtouched by their philosophy. Moreover, English 
 classical criticism as such began an hundred years before Locke 
 and Hobbes wrote. English criticism was, in fact, classical from 
 the beginning. There was no romantic criticism corresponding 
 to the art of Shakespeare. In the previous periods, when it 
 might have arisen, English criticism was unborn. And in 
 Shakespeare's day, criticism, which so often precedes the corre- 
 sponding art,' was, under renaissance influences, turning to the 
 classical ideas which were to characterize the poetry and drama 
 of a following period. Hobbes in the day of Cromwell and Locke 
 in that of Charles were then natural outgrowths of the time. 
 
 The dominant doctrine of this classical criticism was ad- 
 herence to the literary laws of the ancients, especially of Aris- 
 totle and Horace.^. Another source of the classical spirit almost 
 
 1. Concerning this theory that in literature theory precedes practice, see 
 Bobertag, I. c. 375. 
 
 2. This fact is so fundamental, and so universally recognized by modern 
 writers, that it seems superfluous to add more on the point. Should any question 
 arise concerning the statement, it will be found fully answered in the following 
 
 pages. 
 
 — 1<
 
 The Rule of La^v II 
 
 as important as the study of the ancients was the growth of 
 polite conversation. The age from Shakespeare to Dryden was 
 an age of talk.'' And talk, centered in the court and made 
 into a fine art, earae at last in the later seventeenth century to 
 have the regulated, law-abiding propriety of all conventional 
 manners. With the somewhat priggish and frequently unintel- 
 ligent Aristotle- worship on the one hand, and with tlie craving on 
 the other for conversation that should be at once proper and ele- 
 gant, there was a third element tliat made for formality. This 
 was the court temper. Educated men despised the herd. They 
 interlarded their discourse with fragments of Latin, in order 
 to show their rank. Simultaneously playwrights began to show 
 a preference for the elegant heroic line.* In criticism Webbe 
 is doubtful of the common people's judgment of poets ;° and 
 Davenant sixty years after comes to the stronger conclusion that 
 he is hopeless of the common crowd" and deserts it, to take from 
 court and camp the patterns to be dressed up for noble readers.^ 
 
 These three elements in classicism,^ when combined into a 
 school, took two concrete forms, the rule of taste — i. e. sophisti- 
 cated and trained taste — and the rule of reason. But as taste, 
 when interpreted, always meant taste as reason considered it 
 ought to be, the whole thing resolved itself into a rule of reason; 
 and the reason which ruled was educated, directly or indirectly, 
 out of the texts of the ancients.'' This then was, in general 
 terms, tiie meaning of the classical rule of law. 
 
 The keynote, the shibboleth, of this criticism was "decorum." 
 
 3. Sp. xlvi. Dryden explained the "defects" in the lungiia{:e of the Elizabethans 
 as due to tlieir lack of refinement in the language of conversation. {Drfenxf of the 
 EpUoff. 1672. K. 1, 175. See also Bohn, /. c. 94.) Cf. also the epilog to the 
 second part of the Conquest of Grenada (1672). 
 
 Thus Jonson did mechanic humor show, 
 
 AVTien men were dull, and conversation low. 
 
 4. Cf. Manage a la Mode, in which the English prose comedy and the classical 
 heroics are absurdly and incongruously mingled. 
 
 5. Of Enylish Poetry (1586). Sm. I, 298. Cf. also Dr. Klein, IT <f seq. 
 
 6. Preface to Gondibert (1650). Sp. II, 14. 
 
 7. An interesting corollary can be drawn from Pope's observation on Shake- 
 speare (Preface to his ed. of Shakespeare) to the cfTect that much of his strength 
 came from the fact that he adapted himself — as we might say — to the galleries. 
 
 8. Cf. on this point Schelling's definition (/. e. 221) of the difference between 
 classicism and romanticism. 
 
 9. Cf. Miss Wylie (I. c. 14) on Jonson's deference to the past and advocacy 
 of the discipline of reason. Cf. also Corneille's version of .Aristotle's dictum 
 (Discours de I'L'lUite et des Parties dii Poeme Drauiatiqiir. 1C60) that the sole 
 end of poetry is to please, but that in order to please one must follow rules.
 
 !2 The Rise of Classical English Criticistn 
 
 Tliis appears, according to IMr. Smith, first in Ascham.^" E. K.^^ 
 praises Spenser's decorum. Webbe^- makes the matter more 
 specific when he writes: 
 
 "The propriety of speech must be duly observed that weighty 
 and great matters be not spoken slenderly or matters of length 
 too briefly : for it belongeth much both to the comeliness and 
 nature of a matter that in big matters there be likewise used 
 boisterous words." 
 
 And again : In a satire great heed must be taken of decorum 
 "that he which represented some noble personage in the tragedy 
 be not some busy fool in the satire." Puttenham,^^ as usual, is 
 more sound and clear upon the point: 
 
 "But generall^^ to have the style decent and comely, it be- 
 hooves the maker or poet to follow the nature of his subject; 
 that is, if his matter be high and lofty that the style be so too, 
 if mean [oS middle rank], he style also to be mean, if base, the 
 style humble and base acordingly." This, evidently our mod- 
 em rhetorician's tone Puttenham calls decorum of style. He 
 further'* defines decorum as decency, seemliness, comeliness, 
 pleasant approach and convenient proportion. But these terms 
 add nothing in the way of definition, unless it be the last term, 
 proportion, in which we recognize another of our modern rhe- 
 torical principles.*^ Ben Jonson,*" a little later, has the same 
 thing in mind when he speaks of what he considers the undecor- 
 ous customs of his contemporaries, the romanticists. It is folly, 
 he conceives, 
 
 10. (1570). Sm. XXXV, xxxviii. 
 
 11. (1579). Sm. I, 128. 
 
 12. I. c. Sm. I, 290. Cf. Webbe's list of canons of art, and (in Mr. Smith's 
 notes, I, 417) the original canons oi Horace. 
 
 13. The Art of EnyliKh Poeny (1589). Sm. II, 155. 
 
 14. 76. 174. 
 
 15. Mr. Smith, in this connection, quotes Harinsffon to the effect that there 
 may be decorum in persons who speak lasciviously (xlii). This is correct, but mis- 
 leading; for Harrington (Sm. II, 215), in the same breath praises Ariosto for his 
 freedom from ribaldry and obscenity, then says "Further there is so meet a decorum 
 in the persons of those that speak lasciviously, as any of judgment must needs 
 allow. And therefore, though I rather crave pardon than praise for him in this 
 point, yet methinks I can smile at the fineness of some that will condemn him, and 
 yet not only allow but admire our Chaucer, who both in words and sense incurs 
 far more the reprehension of flat scurrility, as I could recite many places, not only 
 in the Miller's Tale, but in the good Wife of Bath's Tale ,and many more, in which 
 only the decorum he keeps i.s that that excises it and makes it more tolerable." 
 
 16. Eiery Man in JUn Humor (1596?). Sm. II, 389. Cf. also Conversations 
 with Drummond. Sp. I, 212, 215.
 
 The Rule of Law 13 
 
 "To make a child, now swaddled, to proceed 
 M:an, and then shoot up in one beard and weed, 
 Past threescore years; or, with three rusty swords. 
 And help of some few foot-and-half-foot words, 
 Fight over York and Lancaster's long jars, 
 And in the tiring-house bring wounds to scars." 
 The playwright, instead of doing this, is to write "deeds and 
 language, such as men do use." Elsewhere he advises writers 
 to follow the classics.^^ 
 
 This is about all we can do from the evidence towards defin- 
 ing decorum as the Elizabethan and his immediate successors 
 saw it. At about this time there is a gap in English criticism, 
 the breaking of tlie silence being preceded immediately by the 
 introduction of French ideas and followed by criticism striking- 
 ly like the French in tone and doctrine. It was in 1635 that the 
 French academy was established and proceeded to adopt the 
 classical criticism. In the same j^ear this criticism was adopted 
 by the court. The standard of French criticism though soon 
 came to be — so far as Englisli admirers of French theory' werj 
 concerned — the doctrines of Corneille, which grew out of the 
 discussions of tlie Academy concerning the Cid, in 16:^8. and 
 were embodied in the dramatist's essays on dramatic technique." 
 He believed in a "favorable interpretation"^® of the classical 
 rules, which was doubtless considered very liberal.^^ But his 
 oMTi modified I'ules soon hardened into dogmas as rigid as those 
 of the ancients. This conception of a reign of law passed into 
 England, and made the already predominant classicism yet more 
 rigidly formal. At the same time we begin to hear less of 
 decorum and rather more of the particular rules which summed 
 up constitute the rather vague conception, decorum. The rules 
 are treated more in detail in the chapters to follow, but we may 
 proceed with a few notes as to the prevalence of the general con- 
 ception in this period of a reign of very decorous law. 
 
 17. Timber (1620-35?). Saintsbury II, 203. 
 
 18. Cf. ossays of Comeille in collected works. Also Miss Wylie. 18, and 
 Brunetiere, L'Evolnlion dcs Genres dans L'JJistoire dt la Li'tiruture. Paris, 
 1892. I, 76. 
 
 19. Diieourf de la Tragfdie (1660). 
 
 20. Tile contemporary conception of St. Evremond concerning law was freer 
 still. Miss V/ylie, :i2-2A.
 
 14 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 J-'li'L-kiuH'-' gives a definition of decorum when he says: 
 
 "Heanniont and Fletcher were excellent of their kind, but 
 lliey •.)rien erred against <!ecorum, seldom representing a valiant 
 man without somewhat of the braggadocio, nor an honorable 
 woman without somewhat of Dol Common in her; to say nothing 
 of their irreverent representing kings' persons on the stage, who 
 should never be represented but with reverence." The first 
 part of this, in its complete blindness to the incongruities of 
 real life, is characteristic of Corneille. The last line echoes 
 one of the characteristic notes of French classicism, the ideal 
 of a noble king to whom common thoughts are unknown. In 
 the hands of Phillips^- and Rymer,"^ decorum becomes at once 
 clearer and more concrete. Phillips objects to the describing 
 ancient things after a modern model, a doctrine trite enough to 
 us, but important as the first charge — under the guise of classical 
 decorum — of the now aggressive historical realism. Rymer, in 
 the passage in question, is treating Shakespeare. In Othello, 
 the characters are such that "By their conduct and manner of 
 talk, a body must strain hard to fancy the scene at Venice ; and 
 not rather in some of our Cinq-ports, where the bailey and his 
 fisher-men are knocking their heads together on account of some 
 whale, or some terrible broil upon the coast." 
 
 Here we have the first notes of another modern characteristic 
 as important as historical realism : that is local color. 
 
 Finally in this matter, we come to the doctrines of Dryden. 
 Some are earlier in date than the last quoted, but his doctrines 
 as a whole naturally stick together as the supreme manifestation 
 of English classicism. Dryden 's great masterpiece, the Essay 
 of Dramatic Poesy was suggested by Flecknoe's Discourse of the 
 
 21. A Short Discourse of the English Stage (1C64). Sp. II, 94. 
 
 22. Preface to Thealrum Poetarum (167o). Sp. II, 269. 
 
 23. A Short View of Tragedy, itH Original, Excellency, and Corruption, with 
 Some Reflections 07i Shakespeare and other Practitioners for the Stage. (1693). 
 Sp. II, 228. Cf. Dennis, The Impartial Critic (1693). Sp. Ill, 148 el seq. Cf. 
 also George B. Dutton, "The French Aristotelian Formalists and Thomas Rymer," 
 Puh. Mod. Lang. Anson., .x.xii, 152.
 
 The Rtde of Law 15 
 
 English Stage;^^ but it, like his other criticism, was largely 
 French in the original sources and impulses. His rules for the 
 stage are close to those of the French.^* 
 
 The definite expressions of Dryden's adherence to classicism 
 may be indicated briefly in chronological order. One of the 
 earliest expressions of it, and about the most rational, occurs in 
 the Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival Ladies :^® 
 
 "Here [in poetry] is no chance, which you have not foreseen; 
 all your heroes are more than your subjects, they are your crea- 
 tures; and though they seem to move freely in all the sallies of 
 their passions, yet you make destinies for them, which they can- 
 not shun. They are moved (if I may dare to say so) like the 
 rational creatures of the Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in 
 their own opinion, because their fetters are invisible." 
 
 In the Defense of the Epilogue, the word decorum^" appears 
 as such, where a speaker in the dialog accuses Fletcher of lacking 
 it. "For his Shepherd," among other characters, "he falls 
 twice into the former indecency of wounding women." 
 
 In A Parallel of Poetry and Painting, his classicism sinks 
 into servility. As we may not encounter again such a phenom- 
 enon, it may be interesting to read specimens: 
 
 ^^"All who, having rejected the ancient rules, and taken the 
 opposite ways, yet boast themselves to be masters of this art, do 
 but deceive others, and are themselves deceived, for that is abso- 
 lutely impossible." 
 
 24. See Sp. II, 91. 
 
 Dryden himself acknowledges his debt to Ben Jonson, "Father Ben" [Essay of 
 Draw. P., K. I, 41 and 43, and the Defense of the Essay, K. I, 122 and 125. His 
 plays also show this influence strongly, especially tlip comic parts of his first play. 
 The Wild Gallant.l, to Casaubon [Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress 
 of Satire], to Aristotle, Horace and Corneille [See especially the Defense of an 
 Essay of Dramatic Poesy, K. I, 122 and 125], and to Longinus [Preface to Troiius 
 and Cressida. See also Bobertag, I. c, 396]. 
 
 Dryden's statements in the Essay of Dramatic Potsy must be taken with 
 caution, as there are four controversial speakers, to-wit : Eugenius [Charles Sack- 
 ville], Lisideius [Sir Charles Sedley], Crites [Sir Robert Howard], and Neander 
 [Dryden]. Cf. the opinion of Bobertag [I. c, 386] that Neander cannot always 
 be considered as speaking for Dryden. 
 
 25. Wylie, 3. 
 
 26. (1664). K. I, 4. This parugrnph is suscejitible of an unclassical inter- 
 pretation, but the clasical falls in better with the usual tone of Dryden. 
 
 27. Defense of the Epilogue (1672). K. I, 166. 
 
 28. (1695). K. II, 134. Cf., however, preceding sentences for a partial ex- 
 planation.
 
 1 6 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 -""To inform onr jiKlgments, and to reform our tastes, rules 
 were invented, that by them we might discern when nature was 
 imitated, and how nearly." 
 
 Again, but more rationally :^° 
 
 "Without rules there can be no art, any more than there 
 can be a house without a door to conduct you into it. ' ' 
 
 But again, with even more than usual servility :^^ 
 
 "Homer and Virgil are to be our guides in the epic; Sopho- 
 cles and Euripides in tragedy : in all things we are to imitate the 
 customs and the times of those j)ersons and things which we rep- 
 resent: not to make new rules of the drama, as Lopez de Vega 
 has attempted unsuccessfully to do, but to be content to follow 
 our masters, who understood nature better than we." 
 
 A little concession though he makes: 
 
 "But if the story which we treat be modem, we are to vary 
 the customs, according to the time and the country where the 
 scene of action lies; for this is still to imitate nature, which is 
 ahvaj's the same, though in a different dress." 
 
 On the other hand we have, almost in the preceding sentence 
 the best spirit of the classicists, "to put all things in a beautiful 
 order and harmony, that the whole may be of a piece." 
 
 Tliis brings us to the end of our period. A further point 
 should be noticed, however. The chissical criticism, at the very 
 moment of its fullest development was breeding germs of decay. 
 The servility of Dryden has been noted. The ethical defection 
 was not its only defect. For it lead to a train of inconsis- 
 tencies, which vitiated the whole mass of classical criticism, and 
 whicli, 1 believe, was, more than anything else, the immediate 
 cause of its decay. 
 
 It is assumed by most that the decay of classicism was due to 
 the paf-;sing of the "classical spirit." As we have noticed, the 
 criticism of an age has — if we may judge from the scanty data 
 we have — usually preceded the development of the corresponding 
 art form. But classical criticism was decaying when classical art 
 was attaining its highest, in the eighteenth century. A mere pass- 
 ing of the classical spirit could not at one and the same point of 
 
 29. lb. 137. 
 
 30. lb. 138. 
 
 31. 76. 139.
 
 The Rule of Law 17 
 
 history account for the rise of one form of classical writing and 
 the decay of another. Again, had classical criticism been merely 
 narrow, but correct, the correct norm would have remained ; in- 
 corporated perhaps in an overgrowing romanticism, but substan- 
 tially unchanged. But a self -contradictory system, even if men 
 failed to detect the fallacies, could not live, because it could 
 only now and then, and by accident, work out a play or poem 
 which could be permanently successful. 
 
 But to take up some of these fallacies specifically. The famous 
 Essay of Dramatic Poesy contains some put into the mouth of 
 Neander, who speaks for Dryden. For example : 
 
 •■'-It might be supposed, says Neander, that blank verse is 
 better for the stage than rhyme, since nearer the speech of real 
 life. But rhyme may be made as natural as blank verse by 
 proper rearrangement of its structure. Rhyme then is equally 
 natural and at the same time sweeter by reason of the rhyme. 
 The remainder of the passage is so contradictory as to be scarcely 
 intelligible. [See footnote]. But heroic verse finds an even 
 more remarkable defense :^^ 
 
 "Tragedy, we know, is wont to image to us the minds and 
 fortunes of noble persons, and to portray these exactly; heroic 
 rhyme is nearest nature, as being the noblest kind of modem 
 verse." And again, a little farther on: 
 
 "Blank verse is acknowledged to be too low for a poem, 
 nay more, for a paper of verses; but if too low for an ordinary 
 sonnet, how much more for tragedy, which is by Aristotle, in the 
 
 32. "If then verse may be made natural in itself, how becomes it improper 
 to a pla.v ? Vou say the stage is the representation of nature, and no man in 
 ordinary conversation speaks in rhyme. But you foresaw when you said this, that 
 it might be answered — neither does any man speak in blank verse, or in measure 
 without rhyme. Therefore you concluded, that which is nearest nature is still to 
 he preferred. But you took no notice that rhyme might be made as natural as 
 blank verse, by the well placing of the words, etc. All the difference betwein them, 
 when they are both correct, is, the sound in one, which the other wants; and if so, 
 the sweetness of it, and all the advantage resulting from it, which are handled in the 
 Preface to Thr Riral Ladies, will yet stand good. As for that place in Aristotle, 
 where he says, plays should be written in that kind of verse which is nearest prose, 
 it makes little for you; blank verse being properly but measure<l prose. Now measure 
 alone, in any modern language, does not constitute verse." Hence blank verse, he 
 concludes, is practically prose, and suitable only for comedy. But the remainder of 
 this remarkable jumble of ideas the reader should puzzle out for himself, in its 
 extraordinary entirety. K. I, 96. 
 
 33. lb. 101.
 
 18 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 tiisi)ute betwixt the epic poesy aud tlie dramatic, for many rea- 
 sons he there alleges, ranked above it?" 
 
 Or once more, what are we to think of such false analogy 
 as this •?* For a man on the stage to speak a half line or a whole 
 which rlnanes with the preceding, may be considered bad, since 
 it suggests design and not spontaneity. But : 
 
 "Supposing we acknowledge it: how comes this confederacy 
 to be more displeasing to you, than in a dance which is well con- 
 trived?" Then after a little the subject is concluded: 
 
 "But there is also the quick and poignant brevity of it (which 
 is an high imitation of nature in those sudden gusts of passion) 
 to mingle with it; and this, joined with the cadency and sweet- 
 ness of the rhyme, leaves nothing in the soul of the hearer to 
 desire." The jumble of subtle truth with absurdity in this 
 closing sentence will present itself. 
 
 It is possible that Dry den's contemporaries did not see these 
 things. But the following self-contradiction is so flagrant as 
 not merely to explain the weakness of the doctrine, but also to 
 cause us to marvel over the blindness of his readers. One of the 
 passages in question has just been quoted, but it wall be worth 
 while to repeat it, in order to confront it more directly with 
 the other.'*' The passages are these : 
 
 "All who, having rejected the ancient rules, and taken the op- 
 posite ways, yet boast themselvas to be masters of this art, do 
 but deceive others, and are themselves deceived; for that is 
 absolutely impossible. ' ' 
 
 "Invention is the first part [of painting and poetry], and 
 absolutely necessary to them both ; yet no rule ever was or ever 
 can be given, how to compass it. A happy genius is the gift of 
 nature." 
 
 Frequently Dryden's fallacies are due to lack of information 
 as to the facts of the case. His conclusion, for example, that 
 blank verse is farther removed from ordinary converse than 
 prose'*" may well be questioned. Our language, when spoken 
 by a person instinctively musical in temperament, and especially 
 
 34. Ih. 103. 
 
 35. Quoted on page 15. Both are from the Parallel of Poeiry and Painting, K. 
 II, pp. 134, 138 respectively. 
 
 36. C7. also K. I, 114.
 
 The Ride of Law 19 
 
 wlifjn colored by emotion, falls naturally into somctliing re- 
 sembling feet. And a slight regularization of these feet is all 
 that is needed to make blank verse.^^ For few metrists will deny 
 that in most blank verse the line-ending is almost as arbitrary as 
 the end assigned by a printer to a line of prose. We read blank 
 verse as a continuous flow of feet, preserving perhaps a slight 
 suggestion of the lines in the intonation, at the same time avoid- 
 ing any further such suggestion by a free use of run-on lines. 
 
 In the same essay ^* Drj'den returns to the subject of the 
 twenty-four hour period for unity of time : 
 
 "Where is the absurdity of affirming, that the feigned busi- 
 ness of twenty-four imagined hours, may not more naturally be 
 represented in the compass of three real hours, than the like 
 feigned business of twenty-four years in the same proportion 
 of real time?" 
 
 Let us look at the subject a moment. For a drama, any 
 period exceeding the actual three hours must proceed by episodes. 
 The individual scene can only represent the length of time it 
 takes to perform it ; but between scenes, some events are omitted, 
 which is to say some time is omitted. Regarding the matter 
 tluis, it is very difficult for us to get from Dryden, or the other 
 classicists, any intelligible reason whj' these omitted gaps may 
 not cover ten years as well as ten hours, aiid that with no lo&s 
 of verisimilitude. In fact, we see plots in real life working 
 out by episodes with long negative gaps between, and these 
 gaps are more frequently gaps of months or years than of hours. 
 These conclusions are so clearly imtenable, they could never have 
 survived in api)lied art, that is, in plays. Even in The liivals, 
 which may be brought up, together with the other Sheridan and 
 Goldsmith plays, as a survi\4ng monument of classicism, no one 
 dreams of taking the assigned five hours as the real duration 
 
 37. Apropos of this: I have heard illiterate negro pickaninnies, of eight or 
 ten years, singing improvised conversation to one another across the street in a 
 style wliich, except in the quality Of the music, differed in no particular from that 
 of grand opera. Here then was neither design nor anything except the most primi- 
 tive and instinctive artifice. Doubtless many mannerisms in our dramas that appear 
 forced to us were natural enough to the Italians or other persons of southern race 
 who invented them, as was suggested by John Dennis {The Impartial Critic, 1693. 
 Sp. TIT. 148). 
 
 :i8. lb. 129.
 
 20 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 <»f the eA'ents. To jret tliroiijih the action in that time — or in 
 twenty- four hours — in real life, the figures would have to move 
 with the celerity of a cinematograph; besides eliminating all time 
 for retieetion on the part of the characters over the moves they 
 make. The mind instinctively ignores the absurdity. The 
 elassical canon, being illogical, refused to work in the mind and 
 instincts of the observer, and so failed. 
 
 Elsewhere Dryden says, concerning a large proportion of 
 the characters of Fletcher's plays, ^^" You know not whether they 
 resemble vice or virtue, and they are either good, bad, or in- 
 different, as the present scene requires it;" as if men did not 
 change from moods of vice to those of virtue on the most irre- 
 sponsible and unforeseeable impulses. His misjudgment of 
 Chaucer through ignorance of his pronunciation is famous. 
 When contradicted on this point by a contemporary, who said 
 the fault was in the critic's ear and not in Chaucer, he replied 
 dogmatically : 
 
 *""This opinion is not worth confuting; 'tis so gross and ob- 
 vious an error, that common sense (which is a rule in everything 
 but matters of faith and revelation) must convince the reader, 
 that equality in numbers, in every verse which we call heroic, was 
 either not known, or not always practiced, in Chaucer's age." 
 
 He is also capable of misquoting his authority. His misinter- 
 pretation of Aristotle's idea of katharsis is a serious blunder.*^ 
 Tragedy is to purge the passions by example ; which is in all like- 
 lihood not Aristotle's idea at all. In Corneille*^ there is such 
 a view expressed ; but this seems to be curiously mixed here with 
 the other Aristotelian idea of purgation through self-expression. 
 
 These inconsistencies go far toward explaining the decay of 
 classical criticism. But there was another force that hastened 
 the disintegration. This was the force of a growing spirit of 
 skepticism as to law ; that is, of romanticism, for in the criticism 
 of this period romanticism was comprised in the one note of 
 skepticism. For nineteenth century romantic criticism, we are 
 indebted, in part at least, to Germany. But this early romantic 
 
 39. Preface to TroUvs and Crexsida (1679). K. I, 217. 
 
 40. Preface to the Fables (1700). K. II, 259. 
 
 41. Preface to Troihu and Crt-nxida (1079). K. I, 209. Cf. Ch. II. 
 
 42. iJixrovrK dru Troix I'niteH (16G0). See p. 29.
 
 The RtiU of Law 21 
 
 dissent — fur revolt is too strong a word — seems to have been a 
 spontaneous, instinctive affair. It was feeble in volume, and the 
 ideas frequently departed from classicism so little as to be in- 
 distinguisiiable unless one traces in succeeding centuries the 
 full romantic theories that grew from them as germs. 
 
 Almost the earliest of these romantic notes came from Ben 
 Jonson*-' in his Every Man out of his Humor, Cordatus speak- 
 ing: 
 
 "No, I assure you, signior; if tliose laws you speak of had 
 been delivered us ab initio, and in their present virtue and per- 
 fection, there bad been some reason of obeying their powers." 
 But the forms of the drama have always been changing. "I 
 see not then but we should enjoy the same licentia or free power 
 to illustrate and heighten our invention as they did; and not 
 be tied to those strict and regular forms which the niceness of a 
 few (who are nothing but form) would thrust upon us." 
 
 He also observes that Drummond" objected that his [Jon- 
 son's] verses "smelled too much of the Schools." 
 
 At about the same period*'' we have a bit of very elementary 
 romanticism from Samuel Daniel, who, in Solomonesque strain, 
 concludes, not indeed that all is vanity, but that all passes, and 
 that our laws are but things of a day. Tout passe, tout cassc, tout 
 lasse, as a much later romanticist has observed. Davenant*" also 
 is a skeptic — as to the value of that primary instrument of classi- 
 cism, imitation. He is also a seeker ofter novelty and hopes to 
 represent nature "in an luiusual dress. "*^ Hobbes** also denies 
 the authority of taste; and later Sir Robert Howard*" does the 
 same in his preface to The Great Favourite, or The Duke of 
 Lerma, an essay best known as the provocation for Dry den's 
 contradictions in his Defense of an Essay of Dramatic Poesy, 
 
 43. (1600). Sm. 11, 392. 
 
 44. (1619). Sp. I, 212. Sainfslniry II, 200. 
 
 45. Difens,- of Rhijme. (1603 0- Sm. Lxiv ; II, 384. 
 
 46. (le.'iO). Sp. II, 7. 
 
 47. Ih. x.xxiv; II, 23. 
 
 48. (1650). Sp. xcvii. Mr. Spingarn refers to Hobbes, Howard and others 
 influenced by the Frence Precit'unf spirit as representing "the first stage of the dis- 
 cussion, in which all authority in taste is denied."' But. as we have just seen, 
 these men were preceded by .Fonson in a partial denial of authority, and by Daniel in 
 complete skepticism as to authority, by nearly half a century. 
 
 49. (1668). Sp. lb.; also II, 109.
 
 22 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 which bears the sub-title, Being an Answer to the Preface of 
 ' The Great Favourite, or The Duke of Lerma'.^° As this is, of 
 the seventeenth century romantic opinions, about the clearest 
 and most specific, we may quote in full : 
 
 "To show therefore upon what ill grounds they dictate laws 
 for dramatic poesy, I shall endeavor to make it evident that 
 there's no such thing as what they all pretend ; for, if strictly and 
 duly weighed, 'tis as impossible for one stage to present two 
 houses or two rooms truly as two centuries or kingdoms, and as 
 impossible that five hours, or four and twenty hours should be 
 two hours and a half as that a thousand hours or years should be 
 less than what they are, the greatest part of time to be compre- 
 hended in the less; for all being impossible, they are none of 
 them nearest the truth or nature of what they present, for im- 
 possibilities are all equal, and admit no degrees." 
 
 Ten years later we have the romantic criticism of the Hudi- 
 hras:^^ 
 
 For all a rhetorician's rules 
 
 Teach nothing but to name his tools. 
 
 Or again, more definitely :^^ 
 
 Whoever will regard poetic fury, 
 "When it is once found idiot by a jury ; 
 And every pert and arbitrary fool 
 Can all poetic license overrule ; 
 Assume a barbarous tyranny to handle 
 The muses worse than ostrogoth or vandal ; 
 Make 'em submit to verdict and report. 
 And stand or fall to th' orders of a court? 
 Going back now a little in date we come to the scattered ro- 
 mantic elements in Dryden's writings.""'^ In the Essay of Dra- 
 matic Poesy there is [Neander — Dry den — speaking] a confession 
 of the bankruptcy of classicism f* but the note is one of mere 
 disillusion rather than of revolt. In the Defense of an Essay of 
 
 50. Cf. the passages previously quoted from Dryden concerning unity of time. 
 
 51. (1678?). 
 
 52. See Sp. II, 278. 
 
 53. Mr. Bohn distinguishes in Dryden's criticism four types: 1. Romantic; 2. 
 French Rationalistic or Xeoclassic; 3. English Rationalistic; 4. Historical. On Dryden's 
 ronianticim, s(?e W.\lie I. c. 51. 
 
 54. (1668). K. I, 99.
 
 The Rule of Law 23 
 
 Dramatic Poeay^^ he expresses his if^noranee of "any other foun- 
 dation of dramatic poesy than the imitation of nature." This is 
 a rather common profession among classicists. But in the Preface 
 to An Evening's Love, or the Mock Aatrologcr, we have a — 
 probably fleeting — mood of open revolt:"^ "Why should there be 
 any Ipse dixit in our poetry, any more than there is in our 
 philosophy?" 
 
 Another distinct pronouncement for romanticism occurs in 
 his Heads of an Answer to Rymer,^'' where he admits that types 
 of art may vary according to the climate, age, and disposition of 
 a people for whom the poet writes, adding that Shakespeare and 
 Fletcher succeeded because they wrote for their own age.°® 
 
 About the most distinctly romantic expression of Drj'den 
 though occurs in his Parallel of Poetry and Paintinq.^^ The 
 passage with its complementary contradiction — characteristic 
 of the self-contradictory Dryden — has been noted. Sir "William 
 Temple,®" about this time, becomes skeptical as to French rules, 
 and thinks they cause poetry to lose its spirit and grace. But it 
 is doubtful if this is more than a protest against an excessive 
 number of rules. 
 
 These slight notes of revolt had but little influence upon the 
 succeeding century, but their inherent reasonableness, and the 
 attack they made upon the classical standards, forced a sort of 
 compromise, which modern writers have somewhat superfluously 
 called rationalism. Just what this compromise was cannot be 
 determined from the texts \x\X\i any exactness. The definition of 
 rationalism is, however, approximately this. If a man draw from 
 traditions a hard and fast rule for action in a drama, he is a 
 classicist : if another say there can be no absolute rule, and that 
 any action which pleases is good, we have a romanticist critic : 
 
 55. (10)68). K. I, 123. 
 
 56. (1671). K. I, 138. C/. also Bohn. 87. Like bo many of Dryden's pro- 
 nouncpincnts, this is suscoptible of a different interpretation. Mr. Bohn (p. 96) 
 quotes the dosing paragraph of the Defense of the Epilogue as a romantic manifesta- 
 tion; but it seems to me an unmistakably classical one. The purport is. however, 
 ambiguous at best. 
 
 57. Bohn, 108. 
 
 58. Cf. Pope's .similar conclusion regarding Shakespeare. Cited on p. 11. Note. 
 (Preface to his edition of Shakespeare.) 
 
 59. See p. 18. 
 
 60. Of rortnj. Works. Aol. Ill, Loiidoii 1770, p. 404.
 
 24 The Rise of Classical Eyiglish Criticism 
 
 the rationalist eomproniises; he maintains, like Dryden, that 
 while to please and to follow nature are the primary aims, a 
 writer cannot succeed in either unless he knows the rules; unlike 
 Dryden though, he admits that the rules may be modified as ex- 
 perience shows modification to be necessary. 
 
 In practice the dividing lines between these classes of critics 
 is obscure. And when a writer becomes slightly illogical, he can 
 easily be. all three at once; as Dryden was. For these reasons, 
 and because rationalism is not a type of criticism but a secondary 
 blending of two types, I prefer to eliminate the term; but have 
 retained it to describe a few symptoms which cannot be set down 
 as either romanticist or classicist for the reason that they are 
 both. 
 
 Perhaps the neatest example of early rationalism — neatest 
 because it strikes fundamental truth wdth naive precision, yet with 
 novelty, — comes from Milton:**^ "They only will best judge who 
 are not luiacquainted with JEschlylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, 
 the three tragic poets unequalled yet by any, and the best rule 
 to all who endeavor to write tragedy." The idea that the man 
 is — presumably — to choose his own rules, but that he must be 
 "not unacquainted" with the ancients, may be trite to us, but is, 
 for its age, strikingly reasonable. 
 
 The French adopted a course in this matter which was a 
 compromise not so much between two systems as between 
 im])ractical law which is ideal but unrealizable and the weak- 
 nesses of human audiences.''^ Corneille"^ held that rules, when 
 not entirely justifiable, had sometimes to be upheld, because the 
 people were used to them and expected them. Elsewhere we 
 have the same."* 
 
 Besides the rationalistic, classical, and romantic, there is 
 another way of conceiving art, the realistic. As all criticism pro- 
 fesses to be rational, so all art aims at being real. So between 
 realism and classicism, as between rationalism and classicism, we 
 cannot draw a very distinct line. Yet realism, in its modern 
 form at any rate, is a distinctly different type of art. Unlike 
 
 61. Preface to Samson Ayonistes (1671). Sp. 1, 209. Cf. also Sp. Ixvi, Ixvii, 
 and Ixviii. 
 
 62. Much of Davenynt's Preface to Oondibert is in this spirit. 
 
 63. DixriiurH dp la Trnyedie (1660). 
 
 64. Cf. Mere, quoted by Sp. xcvi.
 
 The Rule of I.axu 25 
 
 both elassii'ism and rationalism, it admits no rules, but only 
 working hypotheses. But unlike romanticism it sets sharp 
 bounds to the permissible activities of art. Art is to be scien- 
 tifically historical as to the past, and scientifically descriptive of 
 the present."'^ The impossible, even the fairy-tale or fairy drama, 
 such as Midsummer-Night's Dream, are taboo. It is scarcely to 
 our present purpose to enter upon this phase of realism, as 
 represented by De Maupassant, Tolstoy, Ilauptmann, or Thomas 
 Hardy. For of such realism we have only tlie faintest glimmer 
 in the period we are considering. We have, however, much dis- 
 cussion of the older problem of truth in art; and this problem 
 was the direct progenitor of modern realism. 
 
 The oft-repeated Aristotelian doctrine®*^ that art is imitation 
 of nature is realistic. Webbe in his table of canons quotes the 
 objection of Horace to composite animals, such as "a woman's 
 head, a horse neck, the body of a divers colored bird, and many 
 members of sundry creatures compact together, whose legs end- 
 ing like a fish 's tail, ' ' — such he thinks are to be eschewed in art. 
 In the same place we read that speech likewise should avoid such 
 diversity, a classical idea, draAvn from the preceding by a false 
 analogy. But again, in another of these canons we are told that 
 speech must not exceed credit. These ideas with others of the 
 same sort, in the same place [q. v.] belong, however, more to the 
 doctrine of decorum than to realism."^ In the next century®^ the 
 problem is more insistent, but still bound up with decorum.*' 
 The arch-realist, because the most scientific writer of the period, 
 is Bacon.^° But as Bacon believes little in any fiction, his views 
 must be taken as scientific rather than artistic. Ben Jonson^^ 
 lays stress upon the element of realism in decorum ; decorum, he 
 thinks, Sidney violated, because he "made every one speak as 
 well as himself." Again" he criticises adversely artificers who 
 
 65. The distinction between modern realism and romanticism also involves the 
 problem of the sordidly ugly, which the realist freely admits to his art. 
 
 66. Cf. e. g. Sidney. Sm. I, 158. Puttenham, Sm. II, 3. Also Dryden, 
 Lisideius speaking, K. I, 36. 
 
 67. Cf. also King James VI. Treatvie on Verse (1584). Sm. I, 219. 
 68 Cf. Sp. xxxii, Ixv. 
 
 69. For example, see Milton, Preface to Samson Agonistfs (1671). Sp. I, 209. 
 
 70. Advancement of Learning (1605). Sp. I, 6. 
 
 71. Conrer.sation.i with Drummond. (1619). Saintsbury. II. 199. 
 
 72. Timber (1620 35?). Sp. I, 29.
 
 26 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 "i-jin liit nothing but smooth cheeks; they cannot express rough- 
 ness or gravity," an implied theory which in its natural conclu- 
 sions would go far to demolish classical idealism in favor of 
 realism. Davenant, as quoted by Dryden," who doubts it all, 
 has a similar idea: An heroic poem "ought to be dressed in a 
 more familiar and easy shape ; more fitted to the common actions 
 and passions of human life; and, in short, more like a glass of 
 nature, showing us ourselves in our ordinary habits, and figuring 
 a more practicable virtue to us, than was done by the ancients or 
 moderns." Hobbes,^* who so often agrees with Bacon, believes 
 that the poet should be faithful to fact, for both the poet and the 
 historian write only (or should do) matter of fact." Phillips 
 likewise sticks to the real, when he writes :^^ ' ' It would be absurd 
 in a poet to set his hero upon romantic actions (let his courage 
 be what it will) exceeding human strength and power, as to 
 fight singly against whole armies and come off unhurt, at least 
 if a mortal man, and not a deity armed with power divine. ' ' 
 
 Dryden exhibits almost none of the symptoms of realism; 
 and is frequently extreme in his opposition.''*' 
 
 But while these questions of truth were being discussed in 
 such strains, realism of the modern type, except in the scientific 
 doctrines of Bacon and Hobbes, was conspicuous by a total 
 absence. 
 
 73. Essay of Heroic Plays (1672). K. I, 151. 
 
 74. The y utiles of an Heroic Poem (1675). Sp. II, 70 
 
 75. Preface to Thcatrara Poetaruni (1675). Sp. II, 268. 
 
 70. C/. for an example his defense of chini-ras, etc.. Apology for Heroic Poetry 
 and Poetic License. (1677). K. I, 187.
 
 CHAPTER II: 
 THE PURPOSE OF LITERARY ART 
 
 To primitive man literary art was inspiration. The idea re- 
 appears witli apparent sincerity in earlier p]nj?Iish criticism,^ 
 most naively and therefore most genuinely in Thomas AVilson's 
 The Art of Rhetoric, one chapter of whieh^ bears the title, fJlo- 
 quence First Given by God, after Lost hy Man, and Last Re- 
 paired by God Again. 
 
 The Elizabethan aj?e though was not troubled much by re- 
 ligious ideas. Christianity sat light upon it ; and most of the 
 writers Avere half pagan in spirit, and religious rather as 
 formal conformists than as enthusiasts. In criticism this spirit 
 showed itself in the copious borrowing of ideas from Aristotle, 
 and the treatment of all art in a manner purely secular. 
 
 Among the motives which are adduced to explain art. one of 
 the most fundamental is the idea which Aristotle attached to 
 the word Ka6ap(n<;. Precisely what this idea was is matter of 
 dispute.^ We can, however, get the sense approximately from 
 
 1. Sm. xxiii. Citation from Lodge. His other examples are worthless, throuph 
 fallacy of definition. Cf. also Francis Meres' citation of Cicero. [ Sm. 11. 313]. 
 Also Wilson's Art of Rhetoric: Collins, J. Churton, Esaayn and Literarij I'nigments. 
 N. Y. : Uutton, p. 3. Wilson's book was said to have been published in lo.ol, but 
 the first known edition appeared in 1553 [Collins, p. 9]. 
 
 2. Chapter reprinted by Collins; I. c. 
 
 3. For a general discussion, see Bosanquet, .Uslhetic, p. 64. 
 
 Max Nordau's explanation of the caases of art [Degeneration, Bk. Ill, Ch. 
 iii.] explains psychologically and physiologically a principle of practically the same 
 nature: 
 
 "Activity of imitation (and the plastic arts are at bottom nothing but residuary 
 traces of imitative movements) has consequently an immediate organic aim, vii., 
 the freeing of the nervous system from an excitation set up in it by some visual 
 cause." 
 
 Yet excitation, caused by internal organic state, may also give ri.se to "relaxa- 
 tion of the nerve-centers overcharged with motor impulsions, as in the dance, in 
 outcries, song and music, and in p,".rt such as disburden the centers of ideation, like 
 declamation, lyric and epic poetry." 
 
 "Hence imitation is not the source of tlie arts, but one of the media of art : 
 the real source of art is emotion. Artistic activity is not its own end, but it is 
 of direct utility to the artist; its satisfies the need of his organism to transform 
 its emotions into movement. He creates the work of art, not for its own sake, but 
 to free his nervous system from a tension. The expression, which has become a 
 commonplace, is psychoi)hysiologically accurate, viz., the artist writes, paints, 
 sings, or dances the burden of some idea or feeling cflf his mind." 
 
 To this must be added a second end "the objective end of acting upon others," 
 the impulse of sympathy, of creating sympathetic emotions in others." 
 
 — 27 —
 
 28 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 tljo last words of this sentence, vvliieh Bosanquet has paraphrased 
 from the Poetics: 
 
 "Trajjedy is a representation (lit. imitation) of an action 
 noble and complete in itself, and of appreciable magnitude, in 
 language of special fascination, using different kinds of utter- 
 ance in the different parts, given through performers and not 
 by means of narration and producing by (the stimulation of) pity 
 and fear, the alleviating discharge of emotions of that nature." 
 This idea is echoed by Puttenham.* If a man feels great joy, he 
 may relieve himself in poetry : 
 
 "And many be the joys and consolations of the heart, but 
 none greater than such as he may utter and discover by some 
 convenient means: even as to suppress and hide a man's mirth, 
 and not to have therein a partaker, or at leastwise a witness, is no 
 little grief and infelicity." 
 
 Similarly, to express grief relieves it, for it is "a piece of joy 
 to be able to lament with ease, and freely to pour forth a man's 
 inward sorrows and the griefs wherewith his mind is sur- 
 charged." Moreover, "this was a very necessary device of the 
 poet and a fine, besides his poetry to play also the physician, and 
 not only by applying a medicine to the ordinary sickness of 
 mankind, but by making the very grief itself (in part) ) cure of 
 the disease." Thus poetry is, says Puttenham,'' a sort of medi- 
 cine, homeopathic medicine, we would say, in which like cures 
 like. Later Milton*' repeats the same idea to prove Aristotle's 
 dictum, which he cites. Nature uses in this medicine "things of 
 melancholic hue and quality" against melancholy, and so on. 
 
 To return to Puttenham, though : This cheerful and rather 
 humanly facetious critic not only specifies the expression of joy 
 and grief as the function of poetry, but, like a good pedant, 
 proceeds to classify the various occasions on which one may 
 express these feelings. One may be publicly joyful for the 
 peace of a country [Triumphal poetry], joyful for an honorable 
 victory against a foreign enemy [Triumphal], joyful on the 
 occasion of solemn feasts, coronations, instalments of honorary 
 orders [Encomia], weddings [Epithalamies], birthdays of 
 
 4. The Art of Enf/Uxh Pofxi/ [1.589]. Bk. I. Sm. II, 47, 49. 
 
 o. I. r. 
 
 6. Preface to Samson Agoninten [1671]. Sp. I, 207.
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 29 
 
 princes' cliildrcn [(lorH'tliliacaJ, ciitcrtainincnts in court and sim- 
 ilar affairs. i\lan may also be sorrowful, and poetic, on the occa- 
 sion of: death of parents, of friends, of allies, of children, 
 overthrows and discomforts in battle, the subversion of towns, 
 the desolation of countries, the loss of ^oods and worldly promo- 
 tions, honor and renown, and the torments of forlorn or ill-be- 
 stowed love. On all these occasions may a man cure the disorder 
 by poetic expression. But the poet is apparently an expensive 
 doctor to be called in only in extreme eases, ^ for "Such of these 
 griefs as mip:ht be refrained or helped by wisdom and the party's 
 own good endeavor, the poet gave none order to sorrow them." 
 
 This last is an Anglicized version of the restrictions which 
 the ancients put about the subject matter of art. According to 
 the ancients a king should not appear in tragedy unless royally; 
 for he, as a figure of state, has a dignity that demands action 
 either nol)ler or worse than that characteristic of ordinary men. 
 So his troubles must be royal troubles. In what appears to be 
 the English adaptation of this [though it may be simply the in- 
 vention of Puttenham] the lesser woes which are cured by the 
 smaller, business adaptations of life are not dignified enough 
 for art. 
 
 This doctrine of the katharsis we find after the restoration 
 in a French version. It is, it is needless perhaps to observe, not 
 the original doctrine but a distortion. In Comeille* we read: 
 
 "La pitie d'un malheur ou nous voyons tomber nos sem- 
 blables nous porte a la crainte d'un pareil pour nous; cette 
 crainte, au desir de I'eviter; et ee desir, a purger, moderer, rec- 
 tifier, et meme deraciner en nous la passion qui plonge a nos 
 yeux dans ee malheur les personnes que nous plaignons, par cette 
 raison commune, mais naturelle et indubitable, (pie jiour eviter 
 I'effet it faut retrancher la cause." 
 
 Racine and Rapin*' held the same view. It is echoed almast 
 without change by Dryden.'" 
 
 Much more important than this idea of the Aristotelian 
 katharsis, in the earlier English criticism, is the conception of 
 
 7. I. c. 
 
 8. Duieoiirs des Trovi Vnit^ti [1660]. 
 
 9. Sp., Lit. Crit. in the Renai^nance, 75. 
 
 10. Preface to Troiltm and Crinmida [1679]. K. I, 209.
 
 30 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 art as didactic machinery, a sort of higher rhetoric, of little if 
 any use in itself, but important as an engine for making clear 
 and inculcating salutary truths. This inculcating involves two — 
 sometimes distinct — operations, the pleasant presentation of 
 principle on the one hand, and the upholding on the other of an 
 ideal so beautiful that the reader instinctively follows it. In 
 theoretical rhetoric these two functions may be kept separate ; in 
 the theories of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries this is 
 well-nigh impossible. They are here treated together. 
 
 This didacticism was mainly classical rather than Puritan.^^ 
 The Puritan attack was against "lying" art^' and against im- 
 moral" art. 
 
 The earliest English advocate of a thoroughly and con- 
 sistently didactic art was Philip Sidney. "But even in the 
 most excellent determination of goodness," says Sidney, in his 
 Apology for Poetry, '^'^ "what philosopher's counsel can so 
 readily direct a prince, as the feigned Cyrus in Xenophen? or a 
 virtuous man in all fortunes, as Aeneas in Virgil?" 
 
 Or again : 
 
 "The poet is indeed the right popular philosopher, whereof 
 Esop's tales give good proof; whose pretty allegories, stealing 
 under the formal tales of beasts, make many, more beastly than 
 beasts, begin to hear the sound of virtue from these dumb speak- 
 ers." 
 
 The whole of this famous Apology is also deeply infused with 
 calm but burning adoration of ideal perfection, especially in 
 human character. As it is impossible to give the spirit of this in 
 short excerpts, the reader will pardon the introduction of some 
 more lengthy passages.^'' 
 
 11. Spenser's moral teaching theories were in all probability Puritan. But 
 
 Sidney's could scarcely have been deeply affected by such influence. 
 
 12. Sm. xix-xx. 
 
 13. Cf. Gosson's School of Abune. Gosson professed to attack only the abuses 
 of art, not the substance; but he considered the theatre so corrupt that a sober 
 countenance, good friends and modesty at home would all not atone for the evil 
 of a visit to it. Comedies he classed with dicing, car^-playing and bowling alleys, 
 and repented abjectly for having himself written comedies before his reformation. 
 [Arber Reprint, pp. 41, 58, 65]. 
 
 14. [1583. Pub. 1595]. Sm. I, 166 7. The Apology for Poetry was in a 
 measure a reply to Gosson's School of Abuie. 
 
 15. Jb. 172. See also Sm. I, 159, 167, 168, 180.
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 31 
 
 "Now therein [in the inciting to good action] of all sciences 
 (I speak still of humane, and according to the humane conceits) 
 is our poet the monarch. For he doth not only show the way, but 
 giveth so sweet a prospect into the way, as will entice any man 
 to enter into it. Nay, he doth, as if your journey should lie 
 through a fair vineyard, at the first give you a cluster of grapes, 
 that, full of that taste, you may long to pass further. He begin- 
 neth not with obscure definitions, which must blur the margcnt 
 with interpretations, and load the memory with doubtfulness; 
 but he cometh to you with words sent in delightful proportion, 
 either accompanied with, or prepared for, the well enchanting 
 skill of music; and with a tale forsooth he cometh unto you, with 
 a tale which holdetli children from play, and old men from the 
 chimney corner. And, pretending no more, doth intend tlie 
 winning of the mind from wickedness to virtue: even as the 
 child is often brought to take most Avholesome things by liiding 
 them in such other as have a pleasant taste : which, if one should 
 begin to tell them the nature of the aloes or rhubarb they should 
 receive, would sooner take their physic at their ears than at their 
 mouth. So it is in men (most of which are childish in the l)ost 
 things, till they be cradled in their graves) : glad they will be to 
 hear the tales of Hercules, Achilles, Cyrus and .Eneas; and hear- 
 ing them, must needs hear the right description of wisdom, 
 valor,^° and justice ; which, if they had been barely, that is to say 
 philosophically, set out, they would swear they be brought to 
 school again." 
 
 Moreover, the end of this instruction is character:*^ 
 "This purifying of wit, this enriching of memory, enabling 
 of judgment, and enlarging of conceit, which commonly we call 
 learning, under what name soever it come forth, or to what im- 
 mediate end soever it be directed, the final end is to lead and 
 draw us to as high a perfection as our degenerate souls, made 
 worse by their clayey lodgings, can be capable of. This, accord- 
 ing to the inclination of the man, bred many formed impressions. 
 For some that thought this felicity principally to be gotten by 
 Imowledge, and no knowledge to be so high and heavenly as ac- 
 quaintance with the stars, gave themselves to astronomy ; otliers 
 
 IG. The original reads ralure, whiih might also have the sense of laluf. 
 17. lb. p. 100.
 
 32 The Rise of Classical Eu'^lish Criticism 
 
 persundinj]: themselves to be demigods if they knew the causes of 
 things, became natural and supernatural philosophers; some an 
 admirable delight drew to music; and some the certainty of de- 
 monstration to the mathematics; but all, one and other, having 
 this scope — to know, and by knowledge to lift up the mind from 
 the dungeon of the body to the enjoying his own divine essence. 
 l>ut when by the balance of experience it was found that the as- 
 tronomer looking to the stars might fall into a ditch, that the 
 enquiring philosopher might be blind in himself, and the mathe- 
 matician might draw forth a straight line with a crooked heart; 
 then lo, did proof, the overruler of opinions, make manifest that 
 all these are but serving sciences, which as they have each a 
 private end in themselves, so yet are they all directed to the 
 highest end of the mistress knowledge, by the Greeks called 
 Arkitecktonike, which stands (as I think) in the knowledge of 
 a man 's self, in the ethic and politic consideration, with the end of 
 well doing and not of well knowing only. ' ' 
 
 Among all these the poet is ''moderator" and the first as the 
 setter-forth of goodness and inciter to good actions. Another in- 
 teresting feature of the whole doctrine is the conception of ideal- 
 ism not merely as a vision of perfection, but as the setting forth 
 of an idea :^^ 
 
 "The poet, disdaining to be tied to any such subjection [to 
 nature], lifted up with the vigor of his own invention, doth grow 
 in effect another nature, in making things either better than 
 nature bringeth forth, or, quite anew, forms such as never were 
 in nature, as the heroes, demigods, cyclops. Chimeras, furies, and 
 such like : so as he goeth hand in hand with nature, not inclosed 
 within the narrow warrant of her gifts, but freely ranging only 
 within the zodiac of his own wit. 
 
 Nature never set forth the earth in so rich tapestry as divers 
 poets have done, neither with pleasant rivers, fruitful trees, 
 sweet smelling flowers, nor whatsoever else may make the too 
 much loved earth more lovely.^^ Her world is brazen, the poets 
 only deliver a golden. But let those things alone and go to man, 
 for whom as the other things are, so it seemeth in him her utter- 
 
 18. Ih. 156. 
 
 19. This passage is imitated closely by Addison in one of the Spectator papers. 
 418. June 30, 1712.
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 33 
 
 most cunning is employed, and know whether she have brought 
 forth so true a lover as Theagines, so constant a friend as 
 Pilades, so valiant a man as Orlando, so right a prince as Xeno- 
 phon 's Cyrus, so excellent a man every way as Virgil 's yEneas : 
 neither let this be jestingly conceived, because the works of the 
 one be essential, the other, in imitation or fiction ; for any under- 
 standing knoweth the skill of the artificer standeth in that idea 
 or fore-conceit of the work, and not in the work itself. And that 
 the poet hath that idea is manifest, by delivering them forth 
 in such excellence as he hath imagined them. Wliich delivering 
 forth also is not wholly imaginative, as we are wont to say by 
 them that build castles in the air: but so far substantially it 
 worketh, not only to make a Cyrus, which had been but a particu- 
 lar excellence, as nature might have done, but to bestow a Cyrus 
 upon the world, to make many Cyruses, if they ^vill learn aright 
 why and how that maker made him. ' ' 
 
 A few years after this was written, and before it was pub- 
 lished, the platitudinous Webbe wrote that the best kind of 
 poetry should join "commodity" to delight. He quotes from 
 Horace -r^ 
 
 "A poet, that he may be perfect, has need to have knowledge 
 of that part of philosophy which informs the life to good man- 
 ners. The other which pertains to natural things is less plausible, 
 has fewer ornaments, and is not so profitable." And again, still 
 quoting from Horace :^^ 
 
 "It is [not] only a point of wisdom to use many and choice 
 elegant words, but to imderstand also and to set forth things 
 which pertain to the happy end of man's life." 
 
 Always side by side with Webbe 's ponderous treatise the his- 
 torian will think of Puttenham's, as of the talk of a genial and 
 humorous man after that of a bore. As Puttenham is more 
 swxetly reasonable in temper, so he is, despite an occasional ec- 
 centricity, in theory. According to his theorj' the poet is to do 
 good, but do it, as it were, by stealth.- Poetry "inveigles the 
 judgment of man, and carries his opinion this way and that whith- 
 ersoever the heart by impression of the ear shall be most affect iini- 
 
 20. /. c. Sm. I, 295. Canons of Horace. 
 
 21. p. 301. Canons of Horace. 
 
 22. Sm. II, 8.
 
 34 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 atel}- bent and directed." He urges, however, that poetry shall 
 l>e used for no base end.-^ Again :-* There is a fit subject-matter 
 of poetry "which to my intent is whatsoever witty and delicate 
 conceit of man meet or worthy to be put in written verse [sic] 
 for any necessary use of the present time, or good instruction 
 of the posterity." Immediately after the pedantry of his age 
 crops out and he begins to classify the occasions for poetry. But 
 note the width of his limits, and the comparatively minor role 
 which the didactic purpose plays, 
 
 "But the chief and principal is the laud, honor, and glory of 
 the immortal gods (I speak now in phrase of the Gentiles) : 
 secondly the worthy gests [stories] of noble princes, the memo- 
 rial and registry of all great fortunes, the praise of virtue and 
 reproof of vice, the instruction of moral doctrines, the revealing 
 of sciences, natural and other profitable arts, the redress of 
 boisterous and sturdy courages by persuasion, the consolation 
 and repose of temperate minds : finally, the common solace of 
 mankind in all his travails and cares of this transitory life ; and 
 in this last sort, being used for recreation only, may allowably 
 bear matter not always of the gravest or of any great commodity 
 or profit, but rather in some sort vain, dissolute, or wanton, so 
 it be not very scandalous and of evil example." 
 
 In the same year Nash,^"' in his characteristically racy — if 
 vulgar — style, wrote : 
 
 "A man may bawl until his voice be hoarse, exhort with 
 tears till his tongue ache and his eyes be dry, repeat that he 
 would persuade till his staleness does secretly call for a cloak 
 bag, and yet move no more than if he had been all that while 
 mute, if his speech be not seasoned with eloquence and adorned 
 with elocution's assistance. Nothing is more odious to the 
 auditor than the artless tongue of a tedious dolt, which dulls the 
 delight of hearing and slackens the desire of remembering." 
 
 Also in the same year, a greater than either Puttenham or 
 Nash was to throw the weight of his name on the side of didactic 
 poetry. We are inclined sometimes to overlook the didactic 
 morals of the Faerie Queene for the sake of its charms. But 
 
 23. lb. 24. 
 
 24. The Art of Em/lixh Poexi/ \ir,891. Ch. X. Sm. TI, 2.5. 
 
 25. The Anatomy of Abnurditj/ [Printed 1589]. Sm. x.xvii, and I, 334-335.
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 35 
 
 Spenser never forgot them, nor left any room for ainhitruous 
 interpretation. To Sir Walter Raleigh he wrote,-" a[)pending the 
 letter to the poem : 
 
 "The general end therefore of all the book is to fashion a 
 gentleman or noble person in virtuous and gentle discipline." 
 
 The remainder of the letter will doubtless be recalled, so need 
 not be touched upon in detail here. 
 
 A few years after this distinctly momentous critical event. 
 Sir John Ilarington^^ touched upon the same matter, but con- 
 ceived it in a decidedly more strenuous manner. He figured to 
 himsel.f an heroic poetry that "allureth them that of themselves 
 would otherwise loathe them to take and swallow and digest the 
 wholesome precepts of philosophy, and many times even of the 
 true divinity." 
 
 Again, in the same treatise, he comes to one of those rhetori- 
 cal tricks which we may call the virtuous demagoguery of art: 
 
 "This doubtless is a point of great art, to draw a man with a 
 continual thirst to read out the whole work, and toward the 
 end of the book to close up the diverse matters briefly and 
 cleanly. ' ' 
 
 Francis Meres-^ voices the same idea, but in the form of a 
 quotation from Plutarch. 
 
 Later Bacon, -^ with his usual hard common sense, divided 
 poetry into narrative which was what we would call scientifi- 
 cally historical or historically realistic ; representative, or his- 
 tory treated in the present and made visible; and allusive or 
 parabolical. The parabolical poetry is idealistic, and arises from 
 man's dissatisfaction with life.^° Bacon, though, rather more 
 than suspects that this last form of art is primitive. It does well 
 enough for suggesting subjects so subtle that they cannot be put 
 scientifically. For this reason it was more useful in primitive 
 days than now; for men were then less scientific. In fact Bacon 
 is a realist, who somew^hat reluctantly grants an idealistic art, as 
 an useful concession to what he, with ill-concealed contempt, be- 
 
 26. Jan. 23, 1589. Old style chronolopy. 
 
 27. A Preface, or Rather a Brief Apnlopif nf Poetry, and of the Author and 
 Trannlator, prefixed to his translation of Orlando Furiono. [1.591]. Sm. II, 198. 
 
 28. Palladia Tamia [1598]. Sm. 11, 309. 
 
 29. Advancement of Learning. Bk. II. [1605]. Sp. I, 16. 
 
 30. Sp. xi.
 
 36 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 lieves to be low instincts. Bacon, therefore, cannot, in this one of 
 the fundamentals, be called in any sense a classicist. Nor on the 
 other hand does he represent artistic realism. His note is the 
 scorn of a natural scientist for imaginative creations, and repre- 
 sents not a literary but an anti-literary school.^^ 
 
 Here we have a chronological gap, in which the subject seems 
 to have flagged. But in 1675, over three quarters of a centuiy 
 later, it was still in vogue ; for Edward Phillips, in his Preface to 
 Theatrum Poetarum published in that year,^^ reechoes the old 
 sentiments, though in less racy language. "Heroic Poesy ought 
 to be the result of all that can be contrived of profit, delight, or 
 ornament, either from experience in human affairs or from the 
 knowledge of all arts and sciences." But in the conclusion of the 
 sentence we catch a new note: he continues — "it being but 
 requisite that the same work which sets forth the highest acts of 
 kings and heroes should be made fit to allure the inclinations of 
 such like persons to a studious delight in reading of those 
 things which they are desired to imitate. ' ' 
 
 This closing allusion to the acts of kings suggests an explana- 
 tion of the^^ gap in the history of this doctrine, and of its re- 
 vival at this time. The explanation is purely conjectural; but 
 the idea of a king in art as typifying the highest ideal and so 
 spurring to imitation may well have come from Corneille. At 
 this time the Puritan power had passed away, Dryden was in full 
 sway as critic and poet laureate, and the literature — and espe- 
 cially the criticism — of England was thoroughly imbued with 
 French classicism. 
 
 31. In the nineteenth century we have this view developed with logical com- 
 pleteness in Peacock's essay. The Four Ages of Poetry, a work best known as the 
 provoker of Shelley's Defense of Poesy, but worthy of a better fate, both as literature 
 and as criticism. 
 
 32. [1675]. Sp. II, 268. 
 
 33. Saintsbury attributes this gap in critical writing to the wars and the re- 
 sultant disturbances. But wars are certainly not destructive to general literature, 
 though they may be to critical writing. His evidence is [History of Criticism, II. 
 p. 365]: 
 
 "Between the probable date of Jonson Timber (1625-37) and the certain one 
 of Dryden's Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668) we have practically nothing substantive 
 save the interesting prefatory matter to Gondibert (1650)."
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 37 
 
 In Dryden we find the same didactie purpose :''• In Uie 
 Preface to Troilus and Cressida he says:'" 
 
 "To instruct delightfully is the general end of all poetry." 
 He commends Horace as a better instructor than Juvenal." 
 Horace "gives the most various advice and most applicable to 
 all occasions which can occur to us in the course of our lives — 
 as including in his discourses, not only all the rules of morality, 
 but also of civil conversation." Again, he says :^^ "The principal 
 end of painting is to please, and the chief design of poetry is to 
 instruct." 
 
 Originally a phase of didactic idealism, we have the famous 
 matter of the morals of art. This problem, knotty and insolv- 
 able enough by itself, was complicated by the Puritan attack. 
 It was also complicated by the English suspicion of Italian 
 vices.^® Setting aside, however, these complications as ethical 
 rather than literary problems, we have in the purely literary 
 part of the discussion the question, How far can art present evil 
 or make it attractive; or, in other words, if the central funt-tion 
 of art is to teach virtue, how far can it go in exact imitation of 
 an un virtuous world. 
 
 In the hands of Lodge^® this idealistic moral purpose is a 
 satirical purpose, and poetry is conceived as a scourge of abuses. 
 "A poet's wnt can correct, yet not offend." Therefore, he says 
 under the protection of fiction what he cannot say in direct 
 language.*" 
 
 In Sir Philip's Apology again we have the moral popping 
 out with the persistence of that in an improving story for young 
 gentlemen. The poet is a better moral teacher than the philoso- 
 pher, because more moving.*^ And again :*- 
 
 34. Miss Wylie [p. 41] points out though that Dryden chanRcd from his oriffinsl 
 idea of instruction as the purpose of art [Preface to Trans. Works, XII, 279] 
 to that of moral truth as the purpose [Defense of Essay of Dramatic Poesy]. Cf. 
 also Sir Richard Blackmore's Preface to Prince Arthur [1695]. Sp. III. 228. 
 
 35. [1679]. K. I, 209. 
 
 36. Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. II, 82. 
 
 37. Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 128. 
 
 38. See Sm. xviii. 
 
 39. Defense of Poetry [1579]. Sm. I, 82. 
 
 40. This doctrine was later elaborated with the refinement of a degenerate 
 criticism by Shaftesbury. 
 
 41. [1583 95]. Sm. I, 171. Cf. also p. 180, 186-7. 
 
 42. lb. p. 159.
 
 33 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 ''These tliird |the poets are the third of three classes who use 
 imitation] be the}' whieh most properly do imitate to teaeh and 
 deligrht, and to imitate borrow nothing of what i.s, hath been, or 
 shall be : but range, only reined with learned discretion, into the 
 divine consideration of what may be, and should be. These be 
 the}' that, as the first and most noble sort, may justly be termed 
 rates, so these are waited on in the excellentest languages and 
 best understandings, with the fore described name of poets : for 
 these indeed do merely make to imitate, and imitate both to 
 delight and teach, and delight to move men to take that good- 
 ness in hand, which without delight they would fly as from a 
 stranger; and teach, to make them know that goodness where- 
 unto they are moved, which being the noblest scope to which 
 ever any learning was directed, yet want there not idle tongues 
 to bark at them." Comedy that merely stirs to laughter is bad. 
 It should also teach.*^ 
 
 "The great fault even in that point of laughter, and for- 
 bidden plainly by Aristotle, is that they stir laughter in sinful 
 things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous: or in miser- 
 able, which are rather to be pitied than scorned." 
 
 Evil may, however, be used as a foil to goodness:** "In the 
 actions of our life who seeth not the filthiness of evil wanteth a 
 great foil to perceive the beauty of virtue." Yet more, the 
 presentation of evil teaches us its physiogomy so that in life we 
 may know where to expect it. And yet this is not the only pur- 
 pose, for as man instinctively hates the evil characters, he 
 comes, by the recognition of his own traits to hate the evil in 
 himself. It would be worth while to quote here some of that 
 splendid mixture of naive sense and Shakespearian humanity 
 always characteristic of Sidney. But we must stick to our 
 topic. In this treatment of evil and good, we have the culmin- 
 ating point of didactic idealism. The loftiness of its purpose, and 
 the purity of its moral aspiration command as much admiration as 
 do the kindred qualities in Milton,*' and are free from the con- 
 
 43. lb. p. 200. 
 
 44. lb. p. 177. 
 
 4."). Note, liowever, the objection of Voltaire that Milton did not make his evil 
 spirits repulsive, as in realitj' they would have been.
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 39 
 
 troversial bitterness whieh sometimes disturbed the serenity of 
 Milton. 
 
 At the same time we cannot but carry away the conviction 
 that an art built upon such principles would appeal little to our 
 modem taste. 
 
 For example, Sidney says:*° 
 
 "If the poet do his part aright, he will show you in Tantalus, 
 Atreus, and such like, nothing that is not to be shunned ; in 
 Cyrus, -^neas, Ulysses, each thing to be followed ; when the his- 
 torian, bound to tell things as things were, cannot be liberal 
 (without being poetical) of a perfect pattern, but, as in Alexan- 
 der or Scipio himself, show doings, some to be liked, some to be 
 misliked." Almost needless to say such "poets" are obsolete, 
 except on the stage of melodrama, and we are now all what 
 Sidney would call historians. 
 
 Webbe*^ does not go so far, but yet considers that "In jesting 
 it must be observed that it be not lascivious, or ribaldlikc, or 
 slanderous; which precept holds generally in all sorts of writ- 
 ings." On the heels of this comes Puttenham,*" who believing 
 that art may be used solely for recreation, thinks it "may 
 allowably bear matter not always of the gravest or of any great 
 commodity or profit, but rather in some sort vain, dissolute, or 
 wanton, so it is not very scandalous and of evil example." Sir 
 John Harrington, ^^ on the other hand, excuses — tho somewhat 
 grudgingly — looseness or scurrility if it is decorous. Meres*° 
 quotes from Plutarch to the effect that when a poet puts evil into 
 his work, he should always put a condemnation with it: but im- 
 mediately after proceeds to a dictum, the liberality of which is 
 most surprising for its date :^^ 
 
 "As we are delighted in the picture of a viper or a spider 
 artificially enclosed within a precious jewel, so poets do delight 
 us in the learned and cunning depainting of vices." 
 
 In the later period Milton^- is of the opinion that the paths 
 
 46. Ih. p. 168. 
 
 47. I. c. Sm. I, 294. 
 
 48. I. c. Sm. II, 25. 
 
 49. [1591]. Sm. II, 215. 
 
 50. Palladis Tamia [1598]. Sm. II, 310. 
 
 51. lb. Sm. II, 312. 
 
 52. Reason of ChurchOovemmeixt Urged Again»t Prelaty. Bk. II, [1641]. 
 Sp. I, 197.
 
 rO The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 of lionesty and a good life are really easy and pleasant, though 
 tlie^' do not look so, and that literature should reveal them as 
 the.y are. Sir Wiliain Davenant, in his Preface to Gondibert,^^ 
 declares that he chose a story of Christian persons because it 
 more conduced to the teaching of virtue than a story of some 
 other religion. In the same place he refers to virtue as a beauty. 
 Cowley^^ is more puritan in his asceticism, though he admits 
 "Neither would I here be misunderstood, as if I affected so 
 much gravity as to be ashamed to be thought really in love. ' ' 
 
 Shortly after this came the views of Corneille. Comedy — he 
 follows Aristotle — is "La naive peinture des vices et des ver- 
 tues.^'"' But he adheres to the moral in his advocacy of a 
 didactic purpose; and going further concedes to popular taste 
 the reward of good and the punishment of evil. 
 
 "C'est cet interet qu'on aime a prendre pour les vertueux qui 
 a oblige d'en venir a cette autre maniere de finir le poeme 
 dramatique par la punition des mauvaises actions et la recom- 
 pense des bonnes, qui n'est pas un precepte de I'art, mais un 
 usage que nous avons embrasse, dont chacun pent se departir a 
 ses perils." 
 
 Moreover the drama must have "sentiments," and these must 
 be virtuous, or at least healthy and correct, that is, must reflect 
 upon the topics in such manner as will please a healthy man and 
 will not distort facts.°® 
 
 It remained for Wolseley"^ to dissociate art from morals. In 
 Rj'mer,'^ a little later, we have again the moral idea, but this time 
 
 53. [1650]. Sp. II, 9. Compare also Nordau's explanation of the katharsis of 
 ArixtoHf [Cf. also p. 27. Note]. Degeneration, Bk. Ill, Ch. iii. The normal idea ac- 
 cording lo hi.s view is one that is recognized as pleasing because it is beneficial. And 
 the pleasing discharge of emotion is beneficial: "Tlic representation of deserved mis- 
 fortune awakens ideas of justice, a moral, agreeable idea; and even that of unmerited 
 misfortune gives rise to pity, in itself a feeling of pain, though, in its quality of 
 a racial instinct, beneficial and therefore not only moral, but, in its final essence, 
 agreeable." 
 
 54. Preface to Poems [1656]. Sp. II, 85. 
 
 55. Discours de I'VtUile et des Parties du Poeme Dramatique [1660]. As Ck>r- 
 neille's views generally passed into England and were freely discussed there, they 
 may be included here. 
 
 56. DiHCOKrs den Trois Unit^x [1660]. 
 
 57. Preface to Rochester's Valenfinian [1685]. Sp. Ixxxv. 
 
 58. Short View nf Tragedy [169.3]. Sp. II, 252. Jeremy Collier [1698] objects 
 to The Ri'lnjine on the same score [Sp. Ill, 277]. Mr. Spingarn notes that he 
 folloAvs in the whole piece of criticism. Rymer's method [III, 336, Note].
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 41 
 
 characterized by the sweet reasonabhjness of the classical moral 
 idea at its best : 
 
 "Rather may we ask here what unnatural crime Desdemona 
 or her parents had committed, to bring this judgment down 
 upon her: to wed a blackamoor, and innocent to be thus cruelly 
 murdered by him. What instruction can we make out of this 
 catastrophe? Or whither must our reflection lead us? Is not 
 this to envenom and sour our spirits, to make us repine and 
 grumble at Providence and the government of the world? If 
 this be our end, what boots it to be virtuous ? ' ' 
 
 Finally we come to Dryden's views oij the moral question, 
 which, considering his own questionable morals, may be inter- 
 esting. Eugenius, in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy,^^ says that 
 some of the ancients erred by showing a "prosperous \\ickedne.ss, 
 and an unhappy piety." Elsewhere, Dryden, speaking for him- 
 self, quotes Bossu^° to the effect that the first rule in writing an 
 heroic poem is to find a moral. Again :^^ 
 
 "The poet is bound, and that ex officio, to give his reader 
 some one precept of moral virtue, and to caution him against 
 some one particular vice or folly." Yet again there should be 
 nothing immoral, low, or filthy."^ Again,^^ an heroic poem is 
 "to form the mind to heroic virtue by example"; it "raises the 
 soul, and hardens it to virtue"; it serves "to expel arrogance, 
 and introduce compassion." His fables are chosen with refer- 
 ence in each case to the moral."* 
 
 Plainly we have here, both in Prance and in England, modem, 
 or at least eighteenth century notes of precise self-confidence in 
 criticism, distinctly different from the still semi-medieval, 
 speculative Elizabethan criticism. 
 
 But not all sixteenth and seventeenth century criticism was 
 imbued with moralizing or didacticism. A whole literary society 
 engaged in regenerating or impro\dng one another, by means of 
 sugar-coated moral or social lessons, surreptitiously adminis- 
 
 59. [1668]. K. I, 50. 
 
 60. Preface to TroUus and Cressida [1679]. K. I, 213; also Paiall.-l of Poetry 
 and Painting [1695]. K. II, 127. 
 
 61. Dincnursf Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693].K. II, 104. 
 
 62. Parallel of P. and P. [1695]. K. II, 129. 
 
 63. Dedication of the J-:neis [1697]. K. II, 154. 
 
 64. Preface to the Fables [1700]. K. II, 250.
 
 42 The Rise of Classical Eyiglish Criticis?n 
 
 tered, is appallinfr to think of. But in criticism, no less than in 
 the drama and in the lyric poetry, we find the pure, joyful note 
 of pleasure for happiness' sake. One of the earliest notes here 
 again comes from Sir Philip Sidney. In his Apology,^^ poetry is 
 "an art of imitation, to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture: 
 -with this end, to teach and delight." [The itailcs are mine]. 
 
 Spenser*'^ gives evidence of the contemporary demand for 
 pleasure in art as an end in itself, but with a puritan note of 
 regret that it should be. But he accedes to popular demand, for 
 there is "nothing esteemed of, that is not delightful and pleas- 
 ing to common sense," that is the vulgar senses. DanieP' also 
 coupled with one of the purposes of poetry, viz. convenience for 
 memory, delight as another such purpose. 
 
 At this point we have again a chronological gap, and our 
 subject reopens after the disappearance of Puritan power and 
 the appearance of Corneille and Dryden. Shadwell,*''^ in 1671, 
 gives evidence of a well recognized conception of pleasure as an 
 end of art by recoiling from it. 
 
 "I must take leave to dissent from those who seem to insinu- 
 ate that the ultimate end of a poet is to delight, without correc- 
 tion or instruction. Methinks a poet should never acknowledge 
 this, for it makes hira of as little use to mankind as a fiddler or 
 dancing master, who delights the fancy only, without improving 
 the judgment." This seems to be an early reaction against the 
 doctrine of Corneille,"" who somewhat inconsistently accepts the 
 dictum implied, rather than expressed, by Aristotle, that pleas- 
 ure is the sole end of poetry. Thomas Hobbes thinks that an 
 heroic poem should not only profit but also delight.^° A little 
 later, though, we find Thomas Rymer'^ best known to us as 
 
 65. [1.583-95]. Rm. I, 158. 
 
 66. Letter to Raleigh [1589]. 
 
 67. A Dfferme of Rhyme [1603?]. Sm. II, 359. 
 
 68. Preface to The Huviorvits [1671]. Sp. II, 153. 
 
 69. DwcouTH de I'UtUiti et des Parties du Poeme Dramatique [1660]. 
 
 Four years before this, Cowley [Preface to poems, 1656. Sp. I, Ixxv, and II, 
 81.] had boldly asserted that to communicate delight to others is the main end of 
 poetry. Hut the statement occurs, casually, in a subordinate clause, and should not 
 be given much weight, not even so much as Mr. Spingarn appears to give it. 
 
 70. Preface to his translation of the Odyssey. To the Reader Concerning the 
 Virtuen of an Heroic Poem [1675[. Sp. II, 67. 
 
 71. TrnnedicK of the Last Aye Considered and Examined by the Practice of the 
 Ancients and by the Common Sense of All Ayes [1678]. Sp. II, 206.
 
 77/^ Ptirpose of Literary Art 43 
 
 author of the famous attack upon Shakespeare's art, coming; out, 
 with characteristic boldness, in favor of a frankly ph'asure loving 
 poetry. But even here there is still the older English note of 
 "profit." There is more sugar coating than i)ill in Kyiiier's 
 almost de-moral-ized art: but the pill is still there. He puts 
 numbers to his credo, to be specific : 
 
 "1. I believe the end of all poetry is to please. 
 
 2. Some sorts of poetry please without profitinfr. 
 
 3. I am confident whoever writes a tragedy cannot [only?] 
 please but must also profit; 'tis the physic of the mind that he 
 makes palatable. ' ' 
 
 Dryden also believes in delight^^ as one of the primary ends 
 of art ; though a reference to his already quoted advocacy of the 
 teaching and moral purpose will show that it was not, in his 
 conception, the only one. Leading to the same end is the idea 
 that the arousing of admiration is an end of art," though here 
 we may have also an element of idealism. 
 
 Closely akin to these views of the pleasure giving of art, 
 though arising from an antithetical strain of pessimism, is the 
 conception of art as a solace for the ills of life, a characterization 
 of literature that recalls Huxley's characterization of some sorta 
 of theology as an anesthetic against the woes of the world. Tina 
 idea occurs in the work of Puttenham.^^ Puttenham was too 
 jovial a man, however, to have taken this doctrine in any genu- 
 inely pessimistic way. Later the same view is echoed by 
 Bacon.'' 
 
 We may safely say, therefore, despite the scantiness of evi- 
 dence, that in the period which we have under consideration the 
 conception of moral, social, or political truth masquerading as 
 art gradually disintegrated, while the conception of art for the 
 sake of the spontaneous joy of it grew. Of the higher ethical 
 
 72. Author's Apology for Heroic Poetry and Poetic Science [1677]. K. I. 179 
 Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [lti9:i]. K. II, 66, 81. 
 A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. 11, 13. 
 
 73. Dedication of Examen Poeticum [1693]. K. II. 12. .\lso Parallel of P. 
 and P. [1695]. K. II, 138, where he speaks of the pleasure flowing from admiration. 
 
 74. [1589]. Sm. II, 25 and 33. 
 
 75. Advancement of Learning II, iv. [1605]. See Saintsbury, Hiat. of Crit. 
 II, 194.
 
 44 The Rise of Classical Etiglish Criticism 
 
 seriousness which converts joy into a species of worship and 
 fornuihites the phrase Vart pour I'art we find practically none. 
 
 Side b3' side with the doctrines we have been considering we 
 find at least two others which are at the same time clear enough 
 and sufficiently prevalent in their own day to be considered in 
 some sort canons of contemporary art. One is the very curious 
 doctrine that poetry takes its form for the sake of aiding memory. 
 With savages and the earliest literary audiences poetry seems 
 chronologically to have preceded prose. And this may perhaps 
 be explained in part by the superiority of verse for memorizing. 
 But it is a little strange to find such a doctrine reappearing in 
 the days of Elizabeth. 
 
 Here again the first appearance of the doctrine in English 
 seems to be in the treatise of Sidney,^® who maintains that verse 
 exceeds prose for mnemonic purposes, since if a word be omitted 
 in verse, the whole texture is destroyed and attention is called 
 to the omission ; besides which one word so leads to another in 
 poetry that a man can make a confident guess of what is to fol- 
 low. This is plainly proved, according to Sir Philip, by the fact 
 that verses of Latin memorized in youth are still remembered in 
 old age, and by the further fact that those rules of grammar, 
 logic, mathematics, physics and the rest, wliich are especially to 
 be remembered are put into verses. This view is echoed by Sir 
 John Ilarington^^ and by Daniel.^* 
 
 The other of these doctrines, by which earlier English critics 
 have attempted to explain why men should write poetry is some- 
 what more vague. In fact it has remained vague after the 
 passage of two centuries. The theory is that poetry is written for 
 the purpose of civilizing men. Apparently the earliest specific 
 note of this idea is in Wilson's treatise on rhetoric.''''' 
 
 "And therefore whereas men lived brutishly in open fields 
 having neither house to shroud [cover] them in, nor attire to 
 clothe their backs; nor yet any regard to seek their best avail 
 [interest] : these appointed of God, called them together by ut- 
 
 76. [1583-95]. Sm. I, 183. 
 
 77. [1591]. Sm. II, 206. 
 
 78. [1603?]. Sm. II, 359. Cf. at this point, the theory attributed by Spingarn 
 to Castelvetro [Lit. Crit., in the Renaimianee, p. 72] : "Verse is added [to a play] 
 not merely as a delightful aocorapaniment, but also in order that the actors may 
 raise their voices without inconvenience and without loss of dignity." Cf. also 
 Sir Richard Klackmore's Preface to Prince Arthur 1695. [Sp. Ill, 236]. 
 
 79. /. c. [1551? Earliest known ed. 1553].
 
 The Purpose of Literary Art 45 
 
 terance of speech; and persuaded with them what was good, 
 what was bad, and what was gainful for mankind. And although 
 at first the rude could hardly learn, and either for the strange- 
 ness of the thing would not gladly receive the offer, or else for 
 lack of knowledge could not perceive the goodness: yet being 
 somewhat drawTi and delighted with the pleasantness of reason 
 and the sweetness of utterance, after a certain space, they be- 
 came through nature and good advisement, of wild, sober; of 
 cruel, gentle; of fools, wise; and of beasts, men. Such force 
 hath the tongue, and such is the power of eloquence and reason 
 that most men are forced, even to yield in that which most stand- 
 eth against their will." 
 
 The idea occurs again in Harington's 5ne/ Apology for Poetry.^° 
 About the most gracefully worded expression of it, though, is 
 from Dryden :^^ 
 
 "In a word, he [Horace] labors to render us happy in rela- 
 tion to ourselves ; agreeable and faithful to our friends ; and dis- 
 creet, serviceable, and well-bred, in relation to those with whom 
 we are obliged to live, and to converse." 
 
 Of the purpose which to us of to-day seems supreme in the 
 writing of poetry there is only casual mention. It is refreshing, 
 however, to run across it, especially in the charming words of 
 Ilarington. It is the idea that the chief end of poetry may be 
 simply a making pleasant of the dull or a revealing of beauty in 
 the ugly or the indifferent. To Harington®- one of the chief 
 purposes of verse is "the pleasure and sweetness to the ear which 
 makes the discourse pleasant unto us often time when the matter 
 itself is harsh and unacceptable." "For my own part," he con- 
 tinues, "I was never yet so good a husbandman to take any de- 
 light to hear one of my ploughmen tell how an acre of wheat 
 must be fallowed and tvvyfallowed, and how cold land should be 
 burned, and how fruitful land must be well harrowed ; but when 
 I hear one read Virgil, where he saith, 
 
 Saepe etiam steriles incendere profuit agros. 
 
 80. [1591]. Sm. II, 197. 
 
 81. Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693], K. II, 98. 
 
 82. [1591]. Sm. II, 206. Dryden has a similar passage, probably imitated, with 
 a suitable quotation from the fourth Georgic. Discourse Concerning the Originai 
 and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. II, 107.
 
 46 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 Atque levem stipulam erepitantibns urere flammis. 
 
 Sive inde oecultas vires et pabula terra^ 
 
 Pinguia eoneipiunt : sive illis omiie per ignera 
 
 ExecKiuitur vitiiim, atque exsudat inutilis humor, etc., 
 and after, 
 
 ]\Iultuin adeo, rastris glebas qui frangit inertes, 
 
 Vimineasque trahit crates juvat arva. 
 with many other lessons of homely husbandry, but delivered in 
 so good verse that methinks all that while I could find in my 
 heart to drive the plough." 
 
 This was truly the doctrine by which Shakespeare and his 
 contemporaries lived, though they had not the self-conscious 
 science to express it.
 
 CHAPTER m : 
 TYPES OF LITERATURE 
 
 Of all subjects connected with the matter of the types' of 
 art, that most discussed in the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- 
 ries was the sphere of tragedy or heroic drama, the sphere of 
 comedy and the possibility of mixing the two forms. The whole 
 story originated with Aristotle, for whom the subject matter of 
 tragedy must be noble, while the inferior and ugly supplied 
 material for comedy and satire.^ As early as the time of Gas- 
 coigne^ we have a preliminary rumble of the English contro- 
 versy: "To intermingle merry jests in a serious matter is an 
 indecorum." E. K.,* who praises Spenser, believes in the force 
 of contrasts, or foils : 
 
 "Oftentimes a discord in music makes a comely concordance: 
 so great delight took the worthy poet Alceus to behold a blemish 
 in the joint of a well shaped body." 
 
 As did most doctrines, so did this become more definitive 
 in the hands of Sidney. He starts, however, with a very erratic 
 bit of logic, concerning the mingling of tragedy and comedy, 
 prose and verse, and heroic and pastoral matter: "If severed 
 they be good, the conjunction cannot be hurtful."'' Such mix- 
 ture is, however, to be made with decency and discretion, so as 
 not to produce mongrel tragi-comedy.*^ The ancients, he says, never 
 matched hornpipes with funerals, or at least did it "very dain- 
 tily." The real secret, though, lies in the fact that there are two 
 sorts of comedy; one inspires delight, the other laughter. The 
 former may possibly be mixed with tragedy. But the English. 
 
 1. In this chapter, discussion, such as that of King James [Short Trfatiie 
 on Verne'] concerning what special forms of meter and strophe are suitable for 
 special subjects, is for the most part passed over, the discarded dogmas being oither 
 obvious or of no real significance. 
 
 2. Poetics. See Bosanquet, .Esthetic, 64. 
 
 3. Certain Notes of Instruction Concerning the Making of Terse or Rhi/mt 
 in English [1575] Sm. I, 48. 
 
 4. Letter to Harvey [1579]. Sm. I, 129. 
 
 5. Apology [1583-95]. Sm. I, 175. 
 
 6. lb. 199. 
 
 -47-
 
 •58 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 he thinks, have none of this sort, but only the comedy that in- 
 spires hiughter; hence their tragi-cornedies are spurious. 
 
 "Our comedians think there is no delight ^\^thout laughter; 
 which is very wrong, for though laughter may come with delight ; 
 yet comes it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause 
 of laughter: but well may one thing breed both together: nay, 
 rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety : 
 for delight we scarcely do but in things that have a convenience 
 to ourselves or to the general nature : laughter almost ever comes 
 of things most disproportioned to ourselves and nature. Delight 
 has a joy in it, either permanent or present. Laughter has only 
 a scornful tickling.'' For example, we are ravished with delight 
 to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laugh- 
 ter. We laugh at deformed creatures wherein certainly we 
 cannot delight." 
 
 Elsewhere in England this doctrine seems to have been little 
 discussed. But Shakespeare was, at the very time, mixing 
 tragedy with almost burlesque comedy, and Ben Jonson was 
 saying, a little after, that Shakespeare lacked art. In Sir Robert 
 Howard we have a man who commands special attention in that 
 he is himself a playwright. He plainly believes^ that "It is most 
 proper to keep the audience in one entire disposition both of con- 
 cern and attention; for when scenes of so different natures im- 
 mediately succeed one another, it is probable the audience may 
 not so suddenly recollect themselves as to start into an enjoyment 
 of the mirth or into a concern for the sadness." Edward Phil- 
 lips'' likewise follows conventionality, and condemns the mixture 
 of comedy and tragedy. 
 
 Dryden is at once more dogmatic and more clear. Lisideius 
 says :^° 
 
 "There is no theater in the world has anything so absurd as 
 the English tragi-comedy ; 'tis a drama of our own invention, 
 and the fashion of it is enough to proclaim it so; here a course of 
 mirth, there another of sadness and passion, a third of honor, 
 
 7. C'/. Chesterfield's condemnation of open laughter as "low." 
 
 8. Preface to Four New Plays [1665]. Sp. II, 100. 
 
 9. I. c. [167.5]. Sp. II, 270. 
 
 10. Eumtii of Dram. P. [1668]. K. I, 57. Cj. also expressions immediately fol- 
 lowing each of these.
 
 Types of Liter a hire 49 
 
 and fourth a duel : thus, in two liours and a half, we run 
 through all the fits of Bedlam." But Neander [Dryden] re- 
 plies :" 
 
 "Why should he imagine the soul of man more heavy than 
 his senses? Does not the eye pass from an unpleasant ohject to 
 a pleasant in a much shorter time than is required to this? And 
 does not the unpleasantness of the first commend the beauty of 
 the latter?" 
 
 Later, however, in the Preface to Troilus and Cressida,*'^^ 
 Dryden says "He who treats of joy and grief together is in a 
 fair way of causing neither of those effects. ' ' 
 
 Still later we find tragi-comedy characterized as "wholly 
 Gothic. "^3 
 
 Passing now from the subject of mixed tragedy and comedy, 
 we come to specific points of difference between these types. 
 Here our chronology may start with Corneille. Though there is 
 much discussion of the types at an earlier time, the definitions 
 of tragedy and comedy are mere repetitions of classical dicta. ^* 
 Corneille follows Aristotle^^ in his definitions, but with a quali- 
 fication. Tragedy is, as Aristotle said it was, something that 
 deals with large affairs, and is raised above smaller emotions. 
 Tragedy kings should not appear unless royally. They cannot 
 even fall in love unless it be at the peril of life or state. Their 
 dignity demands more than mere love. It demands revenge, am- 
 bition or the like. Comedy is concerned with the imitation of 
 base persons and imposters.^" To these two tj'pes of play, Cor- 
 neille adds a third, heroic comedy, in which a king may fall in 
 love without involving tragic motives, yet without derogation to 
 his dignity. This heroic comedy appears to be identical with 
 
 11. 76. 69. 
 
 12. [1679]. K. I, 223. 
 
 13. A Parallel of Poetry and Paintinff [1695]. K. II, 146. 
 
 14. Cf. however, Sidney's clear statement [1583-95. Sm. I, 176.] that comedy, 
 being an imitation of common errors, handles private and domestic matters, so as 
 to familiarize us with petty arts and petty persons and so warn lis against them. 
 Cf. al.so the distinction of Sidney, already quoted, between high comedy and low 
 comedy. 
 
 15. Diseoura dea Troia Vnitia [1660]. 
 
 16. Cf. Fielding, on this subject, in his preface to Joseph Andrru-a. Comedy, in 
 the original conception, seems to have been always slightly satirical, and like satire 
 so designed as to correct faults or follies.
 
 50 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 Sidney's liighor comedy, though the invention, by Corneille, was 
 probably independent. 
 
 In the Essay of Dramatic Poesy^' [Neander-Dryden-speak- 
 ing] we have a definition of English comedy as distinguished 
 from the ancient. In Aristophanes the laugh arose not from 
 imitation but from some "odd conceit" that contained some 
 "unnatural or obscene" feature. In English comedy, "By 
 humor^^ is meant some extravagant habit, passion, or affection, 
 particular (as I said before) to some one person, by the oddness 
 of which, he is immediately distinguished from the rest of men; 
 which being lively and naturally represented, most frequently 
 begets that malicious pleasure in the audience which is testified 
 by laughter; as all things which are deviations from common 
 customs are ever the aptest to produce it : though by the way this 
 laughter is only accidental, as the person represented is fantastic 
 or bizarre; but pleasure is essential to it, as the imitation of 
 what is natural." 
 
 Later^^ in the same essay, Neander speaks of comedy as the 
 "imitation of common persons and ordinary speaking" Comedy, 
 however, should not treat such matters heavily, for,^° 
 
 "The persons in comedy are of a lower quality, the action is 
 little, and the faults and vices are but the sallies of youth, and 
 the frailties of human nature, and not premeditated crimes: 
 such to which all men are obnoxious, not such as are attempted 
 only by few, and those abandoned to all sense of virtue : such as 
 move pity and commiseration, not detestation and horror: such, 
 in sliort, as may be forgiven, not such as must of necessity be 
 punished." 
 
 Comedy is not merely the pleasant part of life : it is at the 
 same time the low.^^ Yet comedy is not the lowest type; for 
 lower still is the farce,^^ in which persons and actions are un- 
 natural and the manner false. Farce consists of forced humor 
 and unnatural events, monstrous and chimerical, and Dryden 
 
 17. [1C68]. K. I, 85. 
 
 18. Jonson's "humor." Cf. also Congreve, Concerning Humor in Comedy [1695]. 
 Sp. Ill, 242, el seq. 
 
 19. lb. 100. 
 
 20. Preface to An Evening'8 Love, or the Mock Astrologer [1671]. K. I, 143. 
 See also Preface to Troilus and Cressida [1679]. K. I, 209. 
 
 21. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 132. 
 
 22. lb.
 
 Types of L it era ture 51 
 
 does not like it.-^ Comedy appeals to good judges of men and 
 manners, farce to those who are judges of neither and can only 
 appreciate extravagance. But whatever comedy be, the mere 
 element of laughter does nothing to elevate it. For laughter, 
 thinks Dryden, is one of the most animal of human habits.-* 
 
 More beautiful than comedy is tragedy, chiefly because the 
 persons are greater and the actions both greater and nobler, 
 hence productive of more benefit and greater and more noble 
 pleasure.-^ 
 
 It remains now to take a look at certain views on the historical 
 drama, a subject of some special interest to-day on account of its 
 later offspring-problem, historical realism in the drama. A 
 foreshadowing of this historical realism we have in Stirling :^^ 
 
 "It is more agreeable with the gravity of a tragedy that it be 
 grounded upon a true history, where the greatness of a known 
 person, urging regard, doth work the more powerfully upon the 
 affections. As for the satirist and epigrammatist, they mix 
 both the two, who shadowing truth with fables, and discovering 
 true persons with feigned names, may, by alluding to antiquity, 
 tax the modern times." 
 
 Davenant,-^ whose views on epic poetry apply with equal 
 force to the drama, believes in historical subjects, because men 
 will love the renowTi of a virtuous predecessor when they will not 
 reverence the glory of a contemporary who overshadows them, 
 but will rather envy him as merely favored of fortune. 
 
 Later we find discussion of the type heroic poem in Dryden 's 
 Essay of Heroic Flays?^ The heroic poem has love and valor 
 for its subjects. At the same time-^ 
 
 "An heroic poet is not tied to a bare representation of what is 
 true, or exceeding probable ; but that he may let himself loose to 
 visionary objects, and to the representation of such things as 
 
 23. Bobertag, I. c. 392. See also Dryden's An Evening's Love, or the Mock 
 Astrologer [1671]. K. I. 136. 
 
 24. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 133. 
 
 25. I. c. 136. Cf. also the Defense of an Essay of Dram. P. [1668]. K. I, 120: 
 Admiration is the delight of tragedy, satire of comedy. 
 
 26. Anacrisis [1634?]. Sp. I, 186. 
 
 27. I. c. Sp. II, 11. 
 
 28. [1672]. K. I, 150. 
 
 29. lb. 153.
 
 52 The Rise of Classical Ryiglish Criticism 
 
 depending not on sense and therefore not to be comprehended by 
 knowledge, may give him a freer scope for imagination." 
 
 ''Again :^« 
 
 ' ' The epic poem is more for the manners, and tragedy for the 
 passions." Sir Ricliard Bhickmore^^ adds that the formal object 
 of an epic is admiration, and the fact that it admits nothing that 
 is not admirable distinguishes it from all other types of poetry. 
 
 Dryden's conception of the satiric poem is also important,^^ 
 though his definition of the type is quoted from Casaubon -P 
 
 "The satiric is a dramatic poem, annexed to a tragedy, hav- 
 ing a chorus, which consists of satyrs. The persons represented 
 in it are illustrious men; the action of it is great; the style is 
 parth' serious, and partly jocular; and the event of the action 
 most commonly is happy." 
 
 Turning to the lesser types of poetry, we find, in literature 
 in general, allegory approved by Bacon^* as a concession to primi- 
 tive instincts in men v^^ho have not risen to a scientific level. 
 ]\Iilton^^ also has his crochet, religious verse. The songs of the 
 scriptures he calls the finest kinds of lyric, "not in their divine 
 argument alone, but in the very critical art of composition." 
 Poetry of such sort is, according to him, useful for philosophy, 
 for worship, for didactic purposes, for exposition, in fact for 
 most of the functions of serious literature except those of the 
 drama and narratives. 
 
 If we supplement these views with the remarks of Sir Philip 
 Sidney on the types the story and the treatise,^^ we have practi- 
 cally a review of the whole matter of the types of art as con- 
 ceived in the period we are considering. Puttenham 's^^ classifi- 
 cations of the forms of poetry, like other allusions to the subject, 
 are merely conventional explanations of ancient or renaissance 
 forms of verse. The groupings of Puttenham may, however, be 
 noted. For while his names of poetic types are largely peda- 
 gogical, his grouping of the types with reference to the emotions 
 
 30. Dryden, Dedication of the Aeneis [1697]. K. II, 160. 
 
 31. Preface to Prince Arthur [1695]. Sp. Ill, 239. 
 
 32. A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. II. 
 
 33. I. c. 51. 
 
 34. Advancement 'of Learnini/. Bk. II [1605]. Sp. I, 7. Cf. p. 35, I. c. 
 
 35. I. c. Sp. I, 197. 
 
 36. p. 70. 
 
 37. I. c.
 
 Types of Literature 53 
 
 has considerable fresliness. These f,'r()U[)inf^s can be seen most 
 readily in a recapitulation of his chapter heading's: 
 
 Chap. XII, In What Form of Poesy the Gods of tne Gentiles 
 were Praised and Honored; XIII, In What Form of Poesy 
 Vice and the Common Abuses of Man's Life was [sic] Repre- 
 hended ; XIV, How Vice was Afterward Reproved by Two Other 
 Manner of Poems, Better Reformed Than the Satire, Whereof the 
 First was Comedy, the Second Tragedy; XV, In What Form of 
 Poesy the Evil and Outrageous Behaviours of Princes were Rep- 
 rehended; XVI, In What Form of Poesy the Great Princes and 
 Dominators of the World were Honored; XVII, Of the Places 
 Where their Interludes or Poems Dramatic were Represented to 
 the People; XVIII, Of the Shepherd's or Pastoral Poesy Called 
 Eclogue and to What Purpose it was First Invented And Used ; 
 XIX, Of Historical Poesy, by Which the Famous Acts of Princes 
 and the Virtuous and Worthy Lives of Our Forefathers were Re- 
 ported; XX, In What Form of Poesy Virtue in the Inferior 
 Sort was Commended; XXI, The Form Wlierein Honest and 
 Profitable Arts and Sciences were Treated; XXII, In What 
 Form of Poesy the Amorous Affections and Allurements were 
 Uttered; XXIII, The Form of Poetical Rejoicings; XXIV, The 
 Form of Poetical Lamentations; XXV, Of the Solemn Rejoic- 
 ings at the Nativity of Princes' Children; XXVI, The Manner 
 of Rejoicings at Marriages and Weddings; XXVII, The I\Ianner 
 of Poesy by Which they Uttered their Bitter Taunts, and Privy 
 Nips or Witty Scoffs, and Other Merry Conceits; XXVIII, Of 
 the Poem Called Epitaph Used for Memorial of the Dead; 
 XXIX, A Certain Ancient Form of Poesy by Which Men Did 
 Use to Reproach their Enemies; XXX, Of Short Epigrams 
 Called Posies.
 
 CHAPTER IV: 
 MATERIALS SUITABLE FOR LITERATURE 
 
 At the outset of the discussion of what materials are suitable 
 for art we find note of at least one sort considered unsuitable. 
 King Jaraes^ tells us that the poet should not meddle with mat- 
 ters of the common weal or such grave matters. 
 
 "Webbe, in his catalogue of dogmas from Horace, repeats some 
 ideas concerning the legitimate function of imitation, and the 
 consequent validity of imitative material as suitable for the uses 
 of a Mriter. Ascham,' before this, had frankly urged imitation 
 upon all Elizabethans, but Ascham's views are rather peda- 
 gogical than critical in our sense, and his imitation is urged as a 
 pedagogic expedient. Webbe^ deals more directly with critical 
 canons. Though he is quoting, the fact that his quotation is re- 
 produced in a standard treatise on rhetoric is sufficient to stamp 
 it as one of the adopted English canons of his day : 
 
 "Matters which are common may be handled by a poet as 
 they be thought proper to himself alone. All matters of them- 
 selves are open to be treated of by any man ; but if a thing be 
 handled of some one in such sort as he hereby obtain great praise, 
 he makes it his own or proper to himself; as many did write of 
 the Trojan war, but yet Homer made matter which was common 
 to all proper to himself." This defense of borrowed material in 
 art finds an echo in Dryden.* 
 
 At the same time there is, according to Webbe, to be some 
 selection. For the poet should not try any subject that is not 
 personally agreeable.^ 
 
 But material for art should also have novelty. Says Cas- 
 coigne :® 
 
 "If I should undertake to write in praise of a gentlewoman, 
 
 1. Treatise on Verse [1584]. Sm. I, 221. 
 
 2. The Schoolmaster [1570]. Sm. I, 1. 
 
 3. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 292. 
 
 4. Bohn, I. c. 
 
 5. /. c. 296. 
 
 6. Notes or Terse-Making [1575]. Sm. I, 48. 
 
 —54—
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 55 
 
 I would neither praise lier chrystal eye, nor lier cherry lip, etc. 
 For these things are triia ct ohvia. But I would either find some 
 supernatural cause whereby my pen might walk in the superla- 
 tive degree, or else I would undertake to answer for any imper- 
 fection that she has, and thereupon raise the praise of her com- 
 mendation. Likewise, if I should disclose my pretence in love, 
 I would either make a strange discourse of some intolerable pas- 
 sion, or find occasion to plead by the example of some history, 
 or discover my disquiet in shadows per allegoriam, or use the 
 covertest means that I could to avoid the uncomely customs of 
 common writers." 
 
 James of Scotland^ has much the same idea, which — trite 
 though it be — is worth recording. 
 
 "You must also beware of composing anything in the same 
 manner as has been over oft used before. As in special, if you 
 speak of love, beware you describe your love's companionableness, 
 or her fairness. And similarly that you describe not the morning 
 and rising of the sun in the preface of your verse, for these 
 things are so often and diversely written upon by poets already, 
 that if you do the like it will appear you but imitate, and that 
 it comes not of your own invention, which is one of the chief 
 properties of a poet. Therefore, if your subject be to praise 
 your love, you shall rather praise her other qualities, not her 
 fairness or her shape ; or else you shall speak some little thing 
 of it, and afterwards say that your wits are so small, and your 
 utterance so barren, that you cannot describe any part of her 
 w'orthily ; remitting always to the reader to judge of her. in re- 
 spect she matches, or rather excels, Venus, or any woman to 
 whom it shall please you to compare her." 
 
 The ubi(iuitous and rather painfully omniscient Webbe^ also 
 has words to the same effect. Ben Jonson» also, as might be in- 
 ferred from his own style, objects to bookish mannerisms. 
 Hobbes^" is only in a very qualified way to be quoted as a literary' 
 critic; but it may be worth wiiile, in passing, to notice his adher- 
 ence to the same canon. 
 
 7. A. Short Treatise Containing Sams Rules and Deiicrs (• be Obterved and 
 Eschewed in Scotch Poeny [1584]. Sm. I. 220. 
 
 8. I. c. 298. 299. 
 
 9. [1619]. Saintsbury II, 200. 
 
 10 Answer to Davenants rrefaco to Gondibert [1650]. Sp. II, 65.
 
 56 The Rise of Classical Etiglisk Ctiticism 
 
 Tlie reconciliation between imitation and novelty seems to be 
 suggested by the key phrase, learning in art. The poet is to 
 know the masters, but not necessarily in a spirit of servile fol- 
 lowing." Puttenham^' advocates learned verse, and sets 
 Chaucer high, not so much for his character drawing, apparently, 
 or his history telling, or his humanity, as for his learning. This 
 reconciliation is, however, only suggested. In the hands of Dry- 
 den, it lapses into a flat contradiction. He urges that art is the 
 better for an infusion of learning, for the regulating effect of a 
 basic idea, and for the quality of novelty. His opinion concern- 
 ing the necessity for learning appears in an almost impossibly 
 high criterion which he sets up for the epic poet.^^ 
 
 "In an epic poet, one who is worthy of that name, besides an 
 universal genius, is required universal learning, together with 
 all those qualities and acquisitions which I have named above, 
 and as many more as I have, through haste or negligence, omit- 
 ted." At the same time,^* he maintains that of both poetry and 
 painting, "Invention is the first part," and that "Imitators are 
 but a servile kind of cattle. "^^ And again,^** "The copier is that 
 servile imitator, to whom Horace gives no better name than that 
 of animal. "^^ 
 
 Another subject which very largely concerned all early critics 
 was the function of the ugly or the repulsive in art. According 
 to the standards most cited among the ancients, heroic literature 
 dealt with the noble and could not introduce the base unless as 
 a subject for disapprobation. Comedy, on the other hand, was 
 to deal primarily with the absurdities of low or base characters. 
 Thus the problem of the ugly in art was closely interwoven with 
 the matter of the intermixture of types, the permissibility of 
 any form of tragi-comedy, as it was called. This subject is dis- 
 cussed in chapter IV. We may, however, note here more specifi- 
 cally just what ugliness might, according to sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth century English critics, be introduced, and the circum- 
 
 11. C/. Dryden, A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 134. 
 
 12. /. c. [1589]. Sm. II, 64. 
 
 13. Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. II, 43. 
 
 14. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 138. 
 
 15. Translation of Imitatores servum pecus [!]. 
 
 16. Dedication of the ^neis [1697]. K. II, 199. 
 
 17. For a fine specimen of the grotesque and muddled logic of which Dryden 
 was often capable, see the pa.ssage immediately following this citation.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 57 
 
 stances under which it might be so introduced. WcblM?'" with 
 his usual conventionality, but with some facility in expression, 
 admits the ugly when disji^uised : 
 
 "In a comedy it is [not] needful to exhibit all the actions 
 openly, as such as are cruel, un-honest, or ugly ; but such things 
 may better be declared by some meet and handsome words, after 
 what sort they are supposed to be done." 
 
 Puttenham^^ adds that the poet should not write "vain con- 
 ceits, or vicious, or infamous." Meres, as with his ideas of wit, 
 so with his idea of the ugly, is broader; or at least freer. We can 
 take pleasure in deformed creatures artificially painted.^" More- 
 over, quoting from Plutarch : 
 
 "Some things that are not excellent of themselves are good 
 for some, because they are meet for them: so some things are 
 commended in poets w^hich are fit and correspondent for the 
 persons they speak of, although in themselves they are filthy 
 and not to be spoken ; as lame Demonides wished that the shoes 
 that were stolen from him might fit his feet that had stolen 
 them." 
 
 Sir Robert Howard-^ will not admit all subjects on the stage, 
 but cares little for the subterfuges by which the Frencii avoid 
 unpleasant features. But we may quote his own words : 
 
 "Seneca making choice of Medea, Hyppolitus, and Hercules 
 ORtus, it was impossible to show Medea throwing old mangled 
 ^son into her age-renewincr caldron, or to present the scattered 
 limbs of Hyppolitus upon the stage, or show Hercules burning 
 upon his own funeral pyle. 
 
 So that it appears a fault to chose such subjects for the stage, 
 but much greater to affect that method which those subjects en- 
 force ; and therefore the French seem much mistaken, who with- 
 out the necessity sometimes commit the error; and this is as 
 plainly decided by the same author [Horace] in his preceding 
 words : 
 
 18. I. c. [1536]. Sm. I, 293. 
 
 19. I. c. [1589]. Sm. II. 24. 
 
 20. Paltadifi Taniia [1598]. Sm. IT, 309. 311. " 
 
 21. Preface to Four New Plays [1665]. Sp. II, 99.
 
 58 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 Aut ajritiir res in sopnis aut acta refertur: 
 Segnius irritant animos demissa per aurem, 
 Quam qua3 sunt ociilis subjecta fidelibus, et quas 
 Ipse sibi tradit spectator. — 
 
 By Avliich he directly declares his judgment, that everything 
 makes more impression presented than related : nor indeed can 
 anyone rationally assert the contrary, for if they affirm other- 
 wise, they do by consequence maintain that a whole play might 
 be as well related as acted. Therefore, whoever chooses a subject 
 that forces him to relations is to blame, and he that does it with- 
 out the necessity of the subject is much more." 
 
 Dryden does not touch this point specifically, Lisideius, echo- 
 ing French doctrine,^- finds it "convenient and beautiful" to 
 put certain actions behind the scenes and so avoid the "tumult" 
 which often makes an English stage "like the theaters where they 
 fight prizes." 
 
 This, however, is not a mere exclusion of action for^^ [Lisi- 
 deius] : 
 
 "Comeille says judiciously, that the poet is not obliged to 
 expose to view all particular actions which conduce to the princi- 
 pal : he ought to select such of them to be seen, which will appear 
 with the greatest beauty, either by the magnificence of the show, 
 or the vehemence of passion which they produce, or some other 
 charm which they have in them; and let the rest arrive to the 
 audience by narration. 'Tis a great mistake in us to believe the 
 French present no part of the action on the stage ; everj^ altera- 
 tion or crossing of a design, every new-sprung passion, and turn 
 of it, is a part of the action, and much the noblest, except we 
 conceive nothing to be action till they come to blows; as if the 
 painting of the hero's mind were not more properly the poet's 
 work than the strength of his body." 
 
 Again,^* after quoting Horace whose opinion he believes is 
 not in discord with that of Comeille, Lisideius adds: 
 
 "Those actions which by reason of their cruelty will cause 
 aversion in us, or by reason of their impossibility, unbelief, ought 
 either wholly to be avoided by a poet, or only delivered by nar- 
 
 22. An Exaay of Dramatic Poesy [1668], K. I, 62. 
 
 23. lb. 64. 
 
 24. lb. e.5.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 59 
 
 ration. To which we may have hjave to add sudi as to avoid 
 tumult (as was before hinted), or to reduce tlie phjt into a more 
 reasonable compass of time, or for defect of beauty in them, are 
 rather to be rebated than presented to the eye." For example: 
 "We find Ben Jonson urging them [examples] in his Magnclic 
 Lady, where one comes out from dinner, and relates the quarrels 
 and disorders of it, to save the undecent appearance of them on 
 the stage, and to abbreviate the story. ' ' 
 
 He then shows that Ben Jonson in this particular case, as 
 well as in principle, was following a Latin model. Dryden, 
 Neander speaking, grants "a great part" of Lisideius's conten- 
 tions, then sums up^'^ as follows : 
 
 "If we are to be blamed for showing too much of the action, 
 the French are as faulty for discovering too little of it : a mean 
 betwixt both should be observed by every judicious writer, so as 
 the audience may neither be left unsatisfied by not seeing what 
 is beautiful, or shocked by beholding what is either incredible or 
 indecent." 
 
 It might well seem that such doctrines would run foul of the 
 other equally primitive doctrine, that truth, or verisimilitude, 
 should also characterize good art. But the principle of veri- 
 similitude seems to have been confined very largely to the art of 
 using only such material as could be made to seem real or of 
 making what the author chose to use real. The further idea 
 brought out by the modern realists, that a half truth in art, as in 
 life, is often equivalent to a falsehood, — this seems notably ab- 
 sent from all sixteenth and seventeenth century criticism, while 
 there is little or no implication of it in what followed in the 
 eighteenth century. 
 
 Webbe, almost at the beginning of English criticism, sounds 
 a note which, though not exactly on this topic, is on a matter 
 universally associated with it. He states, somewhat dogmatically, 
 that a poet should write from personal experience.-'' Closely 
 akin to this matter is the question : May we, or shall we, write con- 
 cerning that which is remote from our own experience ? The to 
 us important problem, whether a writer shall choose a subject 
 
 25. lb. 75. 
 
 26. I. c. Sm. I, 295. Cf. also Puttenham. /. c. Sm. II. 3. Such experienc«. 
 thinks Webbe, comes from traveling.
 
 60 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 remote or one near at hand and familiar seems to have troubled 
 the Elizabethan and seventeenth century critics very little. The 
 principal consideration in the matter is half facetiously summed 
 up by Davenant:-" 
 
 "Man, continuing the appetites of his first childhood till he 
 arrive at his second, which is more f roward, must be quieted with 
 something that he thinks excellent which he may call his own, 
 but when he sees the like in other places, not staying to compare 
 them, wrangles at all he has. This leads us to observe the 
 craftiness of the comics, who are only willing when they describe 
 humor (and humor is the drunkenness of a nation which no 
 sleep can cure) to lay the scene in their own country as know- 
 ing, we are, like the son of Noah, so little distasted to behold 
 each other's shame, that we delight to see even that of a father; 
 yet when they would set forth greatness and excellent virtue, 
 which is the theme of tragedy, publicly to the people, they wisely, 
 to avoid the quarrels of neighborly envy, remove the scene from 
 home. ' ' 
 
 Davenant^^ is, however, inclined to exclude the supernatural 
 as a bit childish, speaking with some scorn of ''such fables as 
 meanly illustrate a probable heaven by the fashion and dignity 
 of courts, and make a resemblance of hell out of the dreams of 
 frightened women." 
 
 That the scene may be moved into the realm of mythology 
 seems generally to be taken for granted ;^^ but it is interesting to 
 find it explicitly stated in the doctrines of Comeille.^° Even 
 mythology, though, is restrained by the law that it must seem 
 probable. 
 
 Dryden^^ boldly defends the supernatural. 
 
 "If any man object to the improbabilities of a spirit appear- 
 ing, or of a palace raised by magic, I boldly answer him, that 
 an heroic poet is not tied to a bare representation of what is 
 true, or exceeding probable, but that he may let himself loose 
 
 27. Preface to Gondibert [1650]. Sp. II, 12. Cf. quotation from Sidney 
 on p. 31. 
 
 28. Preface to Gondibert [1650]. Sp. II, 5. 
 
 29. Webbe. however [Sm. I, 293], adds the proviso that the gods should not be 
 brought in except for great actions. 
 
 30. DUcourx de la Tragidie [1660]. 
 
 31. EKsay of Ueroic Plays [1672]. K. I, 153.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 61 
 
 to visionary objects, and to the representation of such tliinf^ as 
 depending not on sense, and therefore not to be comprehended by 
 knowledge, may give him a freer scope for imagination. 
 
 ** ****••••• 
 
 Some men think that they have raised a great argument 
 against the use of spectres and magic in heroic poetry, by saying 
 they are unnatural ; but whether they or I believe there are such 
 things, is not material ; 'tis enough that, for aught we know, 
 they may be in nature; and whatever is, or may be, is not prop- 
 erly unnatural." 
 
 Sir Richard Blackmore^^ thinks mythology not essential to an 
 epic, yet that "interesting heaven and hell in the matter does 
 mightily raise the subject." 
 
 But if the remote or the unreal be not necessary for the illu- 
 sion of art, fiction may sometimes be. Such fact appears in the 
 criticism we are considering. Drummond^^ says of Ben Jon.son : 
 "He thought not Bartas a poet, but a verser, because he wrote 
 not fiction"; a view echoed by Davenant:^* 
 
 "For wise poets think it more worthy to seek out truth in 
 the passions than to record the truth of actions, and practice to 
 describe mankind just as we are persuaded or guided by instinct, 
 not particular persons as they are lifted or levelled by the force 
 of fate, it being nobler to contemplate the general history of 
 nature than a selected diary of fortune." And again^'' "Truth 
 narrative and past is the idol of historians, who worship a dead 
 thing, and truth operative, and by effects continually alive is the 
 mistress of poets." Sir Robert Howard^" says "Poets need not 
 argue well." Later, but more flippantly, we have Stirling." 
 
 "The treasures of poetry cannot be better bestowed tlum 
 upon the apparelling of truth; and truth cannot be better ap- 
 
 32. Preface to Prince Arthur [1695]. Sp. Ill, 239. 
 
 33. CoTtvemationx of Ben Jonxon and Drummond [1619]. Sp. I. 211. Sir 
 Philip Sidney's views are omitted here, as they are a part of his previously dis- 
 cussed idealism, which, from its very nature, deals chiefly in fiction. See Apology. 
 Sm. I, 167, 168, 184, 185. 
 
 34. Preface to Gondibert [1650]. Sp. II, 3. 
 
 35. lb. 11. 
 
 36. Preface to The Duke of Lerma [1668]. Sp. IT. 107. See Wylie. 43. Cor- 
 neille has a curious remark on the same subject to the effect that unity of timi- 
 and place [g. v.] permits us to dispense with the probable, so long as we do noi 
 have the impossible, but not in comedy [Dvirourii de la Tragidie].^ 
 
 37. AnacriM.1 [1634?]. Sp. I, 186. See Ssintsbury II, 196.
 
 62 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 parelled to please" young lovers than with the excellences of 
 poetry. ' ' 
 
 Still later Rymer''^ quotes Aristotle to the effect that ' ' Poetry 
 is something more excellent and more philosophical than his- 
 tory. ' ' On the other hand we have Nash^*^ — extreme as always — 
 declaiming against the lies of art, and Hobbes*" declaring that 
 both poet and liistorian should write only matter of fact. It will 
 be well to recall though that Hobbes, like Bacon, was a philoso- 
 pher with a good enough style for writing translations or com- 
 mon-sense essays, but with no more appreciation of literary fire 
 or illusion than a calculating machine; while Nash — though es- 
 sentially literary in temper — was too violent for trustworthy 
 criticism. 
 
 The idea of probability in fiction a.s a guiding principle in- 
 stead of strict truth, like most — except the rudimentary- — of the 
 critical canons, came later. "To make great actions credible is 
 the principal art of poets," says Davenant.*^ But most of the 
 views on this point came after Corneille,*^ who quotes Aristotle 
 to the effect that events should have verisimilitude and be 
 necessary. Coming on the heels of Davenant's criticism is 
 Rymer's*^ critique of Davenant's poem, Gondihert. One of the 
 faults is improbability. Similar views are expressed by Phillips,** 
 but Phillips goes a step nearer to modern realism in his views: 
 a poet should stay as near truth as possible. He should not be 
 "positively contradictory to the truth of history." Rymer,*^ 
 again, severely criticises the improbable in Othello. After the 
 murder, we have : 
 
 "0th. — Why, how should she be murdered? 
 
 Em. — Alas, who knows? 
 
 0th. — You heard her say herself, it was not I. 
 
 38. Preface to Translation of Rapin's Reilectiorut on Aristotle's Treatise of Poesy 
 [1674]. Sp. II, 171. 
 
 39. Anatomy of Absurdity [1589]. Sm. xxix, and I, 323. Cf. also Sm. xvi for 
 remark of Puttenham. 
 
 40. Preface to his Translation of the Odyssey [1675]. Sp. II, 70. 
 
 41. I. c. [1650]. Sp. II, 11. 
 
 42. Discours de la Tragedie [1660]. Cf. a late echo in Collier, Immorality 
 of the English Stage [1698]. Sp. Ill, 278. Cf. also Poetics, xxv. 
 
 43. Preface to the Translation of Rapin's Reflections on Aristotle's Treatise 
 of Poesy [1674]. Sp. II, 169. 
 
 44. I. c. [1675]. Sp. II, 268. 
 
 45. Short View of Tragedy [1693]. Sp. II, 252.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 63 
 
 Em. — She did so; I must needs report a truth. 
 
 0th. — Slie's like a liar gone to burn in Ilrll. 
 
 'Twas I that did it. 
 
 Em. — 0, the more angel she, 
 
 And you the blacker devil ! 
 
 0th. — She turned to folly, and she was an whore. 
 
 Em. — Thou dost belie her, and thou art a devil. 
 
 0th. — She was false as water. 
 
 Em. — Thou art ra.sh as fire, 
 
 To say that she was false : O, she was heavenly true. 
 
 In this kind of dialogue, they continue for forty lines farther, 
 before she bethinks herself to cry murder. 
 
 Em. — Help, help, O help ! 
 
 The moor has killed my mistress ! murder, murder ! 
 
 And so Rymer discusses pretty much the whole of the play. 
 
 Dryden distinctly, though as we shall see somewhat inconsist- 
 ently, advocates a close adherence to nature. As here }^ 
 
 "Though the fancy may be great and the words flowing, yet 
 the soul is but half satisfied when there is not truth in the foun- 
 dation. ' ' 
 
 The same idea is implied in his criticism of Ariosto :*^ 
 
 "His style is luxurious, without majesty or decency, and his 
 adventures without the compass of nature and possibilitj'. " 
 
 This same idea of fidelity to nature occurs elsewhere in Dry- 
 den's writing,*^ but is often modified [or \dtiated?] by the 
 qualification that only by imitating the ancients can we observe 
 nature, since nature, never changing, was the same for them as 
 for us [ !]. 
 
 This appreciation of the necessity for adhering to nature 
 verges upon realism of a modern type when he comes to discuss 
 what we to-day call local color. The first allusion to this from 
 him is in the Preface to Troilus and Cressida,*^ where he ex- 
 presses the doctrine that consistency in the manners attributed 
 
 46. Defense of an Essaii of Dramatic Poeny [1668]. K. I. 121. 
 
 47. Discourxr Concerning the Original and Progrrt^ of satire flfiS^]- K. 
 II, 27. 
 
 48. For example: A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [169:>]. K. II. 134. 
 
 49. [1679]. K. I. 514. Also 217. Cf. also Preface to the Translation of Ovid's 
 Epistles [1680.] K. I. 236. An allusion to something of the sort occurs in the 
 Preface to Annus 3firabilis [1667. K. I. 13], but the words are amtiguous.
 
 64 The Rise of Classical English Ctiticism 
 
 to characters requires attention to the differences of "age or 
 sex, of climates, or quality of the persons, or their present condi- 
 tion. "^^ 
 
 Having gone thus far, it is not surprising that Dryden, 
 towards the end of his career,^^ attained to the conception of 
 scientific impersonality in art, a foretaste of what we cannot but 
 consider the highest attainment of modern realism. He does 
 not himself appear to recognize the importance of his conclusion, 
 but rather blunders into it in the act of criticising certain writers 
 who infused too much of the temperament of the writer into 
 their puppets. Yet even this much of perception of the principle 
 must be considered a notable advance for the day in which it was 
 written down. 
 
 At the same time Dryden was not a realist. And he differed 
 from the modern realists not only in admitting the suppression 
 of truth whenever the truth was inconvenient or ugly, but also 
 in advising a departure from the actual character of the material 
 used. 
 
 Nature, according to his theory, is not truthfully represented 
 by a photographic reproduction. A reproduction of nature is a 
 sort of compromise between the powers and prejudices of the 
 observer on the one hand and the facts of nature on the other.^^ 
 
 50. The best of all the discussions of the seventeenth century on reality in man- 
 ners is that of Dennis [The. Impartial Critic. 1693. Sp. Ill, 150 et seq.'i where 
 he points out the different attitudes of the Greeks and the Italians on the one 
 hand and of Western Europeans on the other towards sensual love, and observes 
 that these differences make the dramatic forms in such matters different for the 
 different national literatures. Dennis's criticism is too detailed to be quoted in full. 
 The chief point is that love dialogue, which is suitable in the North, would be un- 
 natural in Greece or Italy where, under the influences of the heat, lovers do not 
 waste time over dialogue. 
 
 51. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 142. 
 
 52. This brings up a fundamental, yet perplexing question of modern criticism: 
 How far is merely photographic faithfulness true to nature. A Dutch painter who 
 reproduces every vein of his cabbage, or, like Van Dyke, every stitch in a lace 
 collar, or a preRaphaelite, who puts every leaf on his tree and every petal on 
 his meadow blossoms, may he at once scientifically correct and psychologically false. 
 The eye on first looking at such a picture, sees every detail, and conceives the scene 
 as a mass of details. But on looking at such objects in nature, though we may be 
 able to discern such details when our attention is called to them, we literally do 
 not see them ordinarily, our attention being fixed only upon the general effect. 
 
 Mr. William Butler Yeats, in designing scenery for his theater in Dublin, has 
 gone to the other extreme and has used only the simplest sort of suggestive scenery, 
 such being all we could in reality see, if our attention were centered upon the actors. 
 Similarly, when our attention is fixed upon the scene as a whole, we do not notice 
 details, even though there be no such powerfully magnetic an influence as human 
 action to absorb attention. These principles, as a brief logical deduction will 
 show, are implied in Dryden's dictum, though he may not have been aware of it.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 65 
 
 For the representation to appear yrohahie, it must present 
 nature as the observer is accustomed to see it:'"'' 
 
 " 'Tis not necessary that there should be Jiistorical truth in 
 it; but always necessary that there should be a likeness of truth, 
 something that is more than barely possible : probable being that 
 which succeeds, or happens, oftener than it misses. To invent 
 therefore a probability, and to make it wonderful, is the most 
 difficult undertaking in the art of poetry; for that which is not 
 wonderful is not great; and that which is not probable will not 
 delight a reasonable audience. ' ' 
 
 The idea of the unnatural heightening of the drama" implied 
 in this passage is, if interpreted more precisely, of the same 
 nature. Things, for example, which strike us as funny, are proba- 
 bly heightened in the representation of them to the mind of the 
 observer by the heightening or intensifying of the scene which 
 takes place in his imagination. So a representation of nature 
 must be heightened. A serious play, thinks Dry den, "is indeed 
 the representation of nature, but 'tis nature wrought up to an 
 higher pitch. ' ' 
 
 In the Essay of Heroic Plays, he says :"' 
 
 "It is very clear to all who understand poetry, that serious 
 plays ought not to imitate conversation too nearly. If nothing 
 were to be raised above that level, the foundation of poetrj' 
 would be destroyed." 
 
 ]\Ioreover, '"" ' Prose is not to be used in a serious play because 
 too near nature." The next step in this curious shifting of 
 
 53. Preface to TroUus and Cressida [1679]. K. I, 209. 
 
 54. Essay of Dram. P. [1668], Neander — Dryden — speaking K. I. 100. Cf. 
 also Bohn, I. c. Over against the rational heightening of nature just mentioned 
 must be set a more irrational explanation of Dryden, written 27 years later [ParalM 
 of Poetry and Painting. 1695. K. II, 137. [: 
 
 "Truth is the object of our understanding, as good is of our will; and the 
 understanding can no more be delighted with a lie, than the will can choose an ap- 
 parent evil. As truth is the end of all our speculations, bo the discovery of it is 
 the pleasure of them: and since a true knowledge of nature gives us pleasure, a lively 
 imitatiou of it, either in poetry or painting, must of necessity produce a much 
 greater: for both these arts, as I said before, are not only true imitations of nature, 
 but of the best nature, of that which is wrought up to a nobler pitch. They pre- 
 sent us with images more perfect than the life in any individual; and we have the 
 pleasure to see all the scattered beauties of nature united by a happy chemistry 
 without its deformities or faults." 
 
 55. [1672]. K. I, 148. 
 
 56. Defence of An Essay of Dram. P. [1668]. K. I, 114.
 
 66 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 his ground, the defense of rhyme in a play, has already been 
 quoted.^^ 
 
 Another of Dryden's departures from nature is in the to us 
 now familiar doctrine of the inculcation of virtue and the mag- 
 nification of the worthy. The subject of a dramatic or of an 
 epic poet must be great and noble.^^ His reconciliation of such 
 an eclectic principle with the admonition to follow nature sheds 
 but little light, and is rather a darkening of counsel ; but is of 
 great interest both as an example of the confusion into which 
 Dryden can sometimes fall, and also as an illustration of the 
 difficulty experienced in an arbitrary attempt to reconcile the 
 irreconcilable.^^ 
 
 A more radical departure from nature is advocated by Dry- 
 den in his Dedication of theyEneis,^'^ where a momentary jingoism 
 leads him to say that a poet may justly be partial to his country 
 "for he is not tied to truth, or fettered by the laws of history." 
 
 An important point of discrimination for a poet is his choice 
 of characters. Webbe*'^ insists that characters be consistent ; that 
 a character be not "now a bold boaster, and the same straightway 
 a wise, wary man, for that is passing absurd." So also must 
 fitness be observed : "as it is meet and agreeable®^ everywhere a 
 man to be stout, a woman fearful, a servant crafty, a young man 
 gentle. ' ' 
 
 Puttenham^^ observes that high poetry (hymns, historical 
 poems, and tragedies) deal with affairs of the gods, noble tales, 
 the fortunes of princes, and notable affairs, as of war and peace ; 
 "mean" [medium high] poetry deals with the lives and business 
 of lawyers, gentlemen, merchants, good householders and honest 
 citizens, and gives common conversation "of the civiler and 
 better sort of men." Such style appears in comedies and inter- 
 ludes and common poetry of love and such matters. Eclogues 
 deal with the lowest style, that of the common artificer, serving- 
 
 57. lb. See also Bohn, I. c. 68. Also p. 17. Note. 
 
 58. Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 129, 130. Cf. also Sir 
 Richard Blackmore, Preface to Prince Arthur £1695]. Sp. Ill, 239. 
 
 59. A ParaUel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 136, 1«7. 
 
 60. [1697]. K. II, 191. 
 
 61. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 292. 
 
 62. Agreeable here seems to have the meaning in conformity or consistent. Cf. 
 the use in the sentence preceding this. 
 
 63. /. c. [1589]. Sm. II, 158.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature iil 
 
 man, ycoinan, groom, hiishandniati, (iay-lahorcr, sail(n% shepherd, 
 swinelierd, and the like. But in all these styles the virtues and 
 vices recorded are to be in accord with the type: that is, the 
 virtues praised and the vices condemned in high persons are not 
 the same as those praised and condemned in low persons, and 
 vice versa. Hobbes"* has a similar classification, conceiving 
 court matters as fit for epic or tragedy, city matters for satire or 
 comedy, country matters for eclogues. Milton observes in one 
 place*^"' that the "main consistence of a true poem" is "the choice 
 of such persons as they ought to introduce. ' ' 
 
 Dryden, in this matter, as in his treatment of the general con- 
 nection between the imitation of nature and the inculcation of 
 an ideal, is far from logical. That he believes in a sort of realist's 
 fidelity to nature is plain. For one thing a character must be 
 consistent. Whatever the character says or does must be consist- 
 ent with the manners originally attributed to that character; 
 and the habits exhibited must be in accordance with the "degrees 
 and humors" of the character."** Again,"^ at the end of his 
 career, he writes that the thoughts of a character must come 
 "more or less naturally" from the person. In the same es.say'* 
 he applauds the manner in which Chaucer's pilgrims are distin- 
 guished as individuals in inclinations, physiognomies and per- 
 sons. This doctrine, if not perhaps entirely sound from the 
 standpoint of a medical man,^^ is yet more sound than mo.st of 
 those held in its day. Unfortunately it is vitiated by the untem- 
 pered idealism we have already noticed. When he finds his 
 doctrines accused of producing "a faultless monster, which the 
 world ne'er knew,"^" he recants. At the same time when he 
 wishes, in order to arouse pity, to use historical persons, some 
 portions of whose characters might arouse hatred, he does not 
 hesitate to modify history. The deformities of his Antony and 
 
 64. Sp. xxxi. 
 
 65. The Ketmon of Chureh-OovernmerU Urged against Prelaty. Bk. II [1641]. 
 
 Sp. I, 198. 
 
 66. Parallel of Poetry and Painting [169r>]. K. II. 128. 142. 
 
 67. Preface to the Fables [1700]. K. II, 2.56. 
 
 68. /'>. 262. 
 
 69. What, for example, would Dryden do with such a character as Oliver Won 
 dell Holmes' Elsie Vernier: or, if objection be raised to the possibility of the ex- 
 istence of such, to his Myrtle Hazard. Again, is it possible, outside of plays and 
 novels, to discern any accord between a man's face or his manner, and his character! 
 
 70. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. 11. I'JS
 
 68 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 Cleopatra^^ he throws into the shade, in order that pity and not 
 liatred may be aroused. At other times the virtues of a hero, 
 such as Achilles,"^ he thinks, may be exhibited without his defects. 
 Immediately after we have the nearest aproach to a reconcilia- 
 tion between realism and idealism. The manners of the hero 
 "are poetically good if they are of a piece: though where a 
 character of perfect virtue is set before us, it is more lovely ; for 
 there the whole hero is to be imitated." 
 
 A copious discussion of what is practically a part of the doc- 
 trine of characters, the human motives by which characters 
 should be moved, was introduced by Corneille. To start though 
 with Aristotle." The pity and fear of tragedy are not the real 
 pitj"^ and fear of life, but the pity and fear which are felt by 
 sympathy in such fashion as to give pleasure. We may put this 
 into modem language in this fashion. To see the passion of a 
 murderer on the stage or the grief of the bereaved may give 
 us pleasure ; and Ave pay to see it ; whereas the same emotions in 
 real life would provoke the other extreme of sensation. If in the 
 theater we so far forget ourselves as to take what passes before 
 us for real, then the painful emotions become ugly, we hiss the 
 villain, applaud the hero, as though in real life, and the whole 
 degenerates into melodrama.^* Of this there seems to be little 
 in the criticism of our period. Corneille,''^ however, quotes 
 another theory of Aristotle. Aristotle says all action passes be- 
 tween friends, enemies, or persons indifferent to one another. 
 If an enemy kill or wishes to kill an enemy, our commiseration is 
 not moved. If, of two mutually indifferent persons, one kill the 
 other, it doe>; not move us. But when persons whom birth or 
 affection has bound together wish to kill one another, it moves 
 us marvelously to tragedy. The explanation, he continues, is 
 that the opposition of sentiments gives pleasure. Of this we have 
 little in English criticism before that of Dryden, though Daven- 
 ant^^ suggests a restriction as to the choice of human motives 
 
 71. 76. 146. 
 
 72. Dedication of the ^neis [1697]. K. II, 159. 
 
 73. Bosanquet, I. c. 65. 
 
 74. Cf. Charles Lamb's spontaneous expression of the same conclusion. [On the 
 Artificial Comedy of the Last Century. '\ 
 
 Ir,. DiMcoum de la Tragidie [1660]. Cf. Poetics, xiv. 
 
 76. I. c. [1650]. Sp. II, 14.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 69 
 
 when he explains that "the characters of men whose passions 
 are to be eschewed I have derived from tlie distempers of love or 
 ambition, for love and ambition are too often the rating fevers 
 of great minds." This, however, he qualifies by the fact that 
 under certain interpretations ambition is a virtue. 
 
 Another dictum, or rather collection of dicta, that appears in 
 Dryden's theory is of greater subtlety. It has long been de- 
 bated and is still debated whether writing, — and for that matter 
 polite conversation, — is improved by an infusion of lifihtly satiri- 
 cal malice.^^ To many persons, especially the French, a character 
 or discourse devoid of such spice, is like a salad in which the 
 pepper is omitted. It is flat, stale, and at least unpleasing. A 
 view similar to this Dryden expresses and reiterates in his Dis- 
 course Concerning the Origin and Progress of Satire. At first 
 glance it may appear that he is indebted for this opinion to the 
 French. It is evident, though, from internal evidence, that his 
 immediate source was the Latin satirists; though the critic's own 
 satirical disposition, evidence of which appears in his poetry, is 
 suficient to account for much of it. Moreover, there is another 
 phase of satire that Dryden advocates, which differentiates it in 
 character from the French, the qualification that its shafts should 
 be aimed at corruptions and should be used for the ends of virtue, 
 rather than for a wanton pleasure in the inflicting of pain. For 
 an example of satire, he cites Ennius,^^ who, he says, took over 
 from his predecessors pleasantry, venom and raillery "on par- 
 ticular persons, and general vices." Lucilius^^ later added to the 
 traditions of Latin satire 'more politeness, and more salt." 
 Persius,^" however, "rather insulted over vice and folly, than 
 exposed them." Again,^^ "Folly was the proper quarry of 
 Horace, and not vice." Again,*^ "Juvenal is of a more vigorous 
 and masculine wit [than Horace] ; he gives me as much pleasure 
 as I can bear; he fully satisfies my expectation; he treats his 
 subject home: his spleen is raised, and he raises mine," etc. 
 
 77. Cf. Meres' curious — or perhaps facetious — view on this point, that satire, 
 by stirring up dissensions between poets, keeps any group from predominating at 
 the expcn.se of general equilibrium. ['Sketch of English Literature. Painting and 
 Music to September, 1598." Reprinted in .Vrber's EnpliMh Girnrr. 11, 106.] 
 
 78. A Discourse Concerning the Oriffinal and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. 
 II, 60. 
 
 79. lb. 63. 80. lb. 71. 81. lb. 83. 82. lb. 84.
 
 70 The Rise of Classical English Criticisjn 
 
 Further on**-' he praises Virfjil and Boileau as possessing "the 
 most beautiful, the most noble kind of satire," where the "ma- 
 jesty of the lieroic" is "finely mixed" with "venom." 
 
 Yet tlie satire must always have a purpose. At least so we 
 judge from his approval of Horace's motives: 
 
 "In these two books of satire, 'tis the business of Horace to 
 instruct us how to combat our vices, to regulate our passions, to 
 follow nature, to give bounds to our desires, to distinguish 
 betwixt truth and falsehood, and betwixt our conceptions of 
 things, and things themselves; to come back from our prejudicate 
 opinions, to understand exactly the principles and motives of all 
 our actions; and to avoid the ridicule into which all men neces- 
 sarily fall, who are intoxicated with those notions which they 
 have received from their masters, and which the}^ obstinately 
 retain, without examining whether or no they be founded on 
 right reason." 
 
 For prose, specifically as prose, there is in our period little 
 discussion of materials. In a passage of Sir Philip Sidney, in a 
 letter to his brother,^* we have a sort of catalogue of materials 
 for a story: 
 
 "A story is either to be considered as a story ; or as a treatise, 
 which, besides that, adds many things for profit and ornament. 
 
 *********** 
 
 In that kind [as a story], you have principally to note the 
 examples of virtue and vice, with their good or evil success ; the 
 establishment or ruins of great estates, with the causes, the time, 
 and circumstances of the laws then written of ; the enterings and 
 endings of wars; and therein, the strategems against the enemy, 
 and the discipline upon the soldier." 
 
 Ben Jonson also has some shrewd observations as to what 
 materials are suitable for art. Ben Jonson in criticism most 
 frequently utters platitudes, but it is not uninteresting to hear 
 him observe :**'"' "If fyou write] to your superior, you are bound 
 to measure him in three farther points : first, your interest in 
 
 83. Jh. 108 
 
 84. Oct. 18, l.'iSO. Printed in Ohurton Collins' Exxnys and Literary Frag- 
 ments, 5. 
 
 85. Timber, or Dincoveriea [1620-38?]- Sp. I, 46.
 
 Materials Suitable for Literature 71 
 
 him; secondly, his capacity in your letters; thirdly, his leisure 
 to {X'ruse them." 
 
 This is practically the whole story of Elizahetlian and seven- 
 teenth century ideas as to the materials of art; with, however, 
 the exception of one view yet to be noted. This is the gcrmina- 
 tively romantic view that any subject-matter is fit for art. In a 
 classical af?e it stands out in striking contrast to its surroundings. 
 There are many suggestions of this germinative romantic spirit; 
 but none is more characteristic. In Webbe's"® words "Poetry is 
 not debarred from any matter which may be expressed by pen or 
 speech. Daniel,®" less theoretically, says: "Suffer then the 
 world to enjoy that which it knows, and what it likes." 
 
 86. \. c. Sm. XXX, xlvi, and I, 249. 
 
 87. A. Defenxe of Rhyme [1603?]. Sm. II. 363.
 
 CHAPTER V: STYLE 
 
 Almost the first note we have in English criticism concerning 
 style strikes the note of illusion. Art must, according to Sir 
 Philip Sidney/ create the illusion of joy. Things naturally hor- 
 rible, cruel battles, unnatural monsters and the rest are made 
 delightful. Illusion in general is probably what Webbe^ has in 
 mind when he says, a good poet should consider how he is to re- 
 tain his reader or hearer, and again^ that a poet, in dealing wdth 
 "affects of the mind" should be as skillful as" a juggler or a 
 tumbler and that the reader by that art should seem to hear and 
 see the action. Or, as Dryden* puts it, the poet is to strive for 
 absolute dominion over the minds of the spectators. But to do 
 this he must have some knowledge of what we would call psy- 
 chology.^ 
 
 "He who would raise the passion of a judicious audience, 
 says a learned critic,"^ must be sure to take his hearers along with 
 him ; if they be in a calm, 'tis in vain for him to be in a huff : he 
 must move them by degrees, and kindle with 'em; otherwise he 
 will be in danger of setting his owti heap of stubble on fire, and 
 of burning out by himself, without warming the company that 
 stands about him." 
 
 Perhaps the neatest expression though of the principle of illu- 
 sion is that of Sir William Temple. '^ 
 
 "Whoever does not affect and move the same present passions 
 in you, that he represents in others, and at other times, raise 
 images about you, as a conjuror is said to do spirits, transports 
 
 1. Apolof/u [1583-95]. Sm. I, 17.3. Cf. citations from Sidney and Hariiigton. 
 Ch. II, pp. 31, 45. Cf. also Charles Lamb's contention that the stage should always 
 maintain conscious illusion. See p. 68. Cf. for the opposite view, Spingarn's inter- 
 pretation of Scaliger [Lit. Crit. in the Renaissance, 95] : "An absolutely perfect 
 illusion must prevail; the spectator must be moved by the actions of the play ex- 
 actly as if they were those of real life." 
 
 2. /. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 296. 
 
 3. /.'>. 299. 
 
 4. An Essay of Heroic Plnys [1672]. K. I, 155. 
 
 5. Prefjice to Troilu-t and Cressida [1679]. K. I. 221. 
 
 6. Bossu. Dii Poihnp Epiq-iie, I, 348. K. I, 318. Note. 
 
 7. Of Poetry [1692]. Works, Vol. III. London: 1770, p. 406. 
 
 —72—
 
 Style 73 
 
 you to the places and to the persons he describes, cannot be 
 judged to be a poet, though his measures are never so just, his 
 feet never so smooth, or his sounds never so sweet." 
 
 Such effects must seem spontaneous. There must be the art 
 to conceal the art. According to Sidney® a courtier is more apt 
 to exhibit good art than a professor of learning. The cause, as 
 he "guesses" it, is that the courtier follows that conduct which 
 by practice he finds to be "fittest" to nature, and therein, with- 
 out knowing it, acts according to art. whereas the professor uses 
 art to show art instead of to hide it. Webbe^ goes a step farther, 
 and states that the poet should assume the affectedly indifferent 
 attitude that we usually associate with Frenchmen. It is the 
 attitude that Congreve and Fielding affected when they con- 
 cealed the sweat and gigantic labor their better works must have 
 cost them, and pretended that they merely dashed off a few 
 things now and then, in an off-hand way, graciously giving them 
 to the public, but with an air of indifference. This attitude, ac- 
 cording to Webbe, should also appear in the author's text. This 
 is repeated, but in clumsier language, by Ben Jonson,^° accord- 
 ing to whom the writer should "use (as ladies do in their attire) 
 a diligent kind of negligence, and their sportive freedom. ' ' Dry- 
 den,^^ in advocating the concealment of the artistic mechanism, 
 soars to the sublimer heights of the doctrine of predestination : 
 The characters are moved "like the rational creatures of the 
 Almighty Poet, who walk at liberty, in their o\vn opinion, be- 
 cause their fetters are invisible." 
 
 At the samt time art must have labor bestowed upon it; it 
 must represent craftsmanship, a warning which comes appro- 
 nriately from the pedantic Webbe.^- Extempore verses are in 
 little estimation: and the inartificial ones are repelled as foolish. 
 Cleverness may even exceed mere art and make a perfect verse, 
 if the writer be heedful of good composition. This last, however, 
 is contradicted by the further doctrine that an "artificial poet" 
 must have nature, art and diligence. Verses may exhibit lack of 
 
 8. I. c. [1583 95]. Sm. I. 203. Cf. also his objection to "Swelling phrases." 
 76. 201. 
 
 9. 1. c. [15861. Sm. T, 300. 
 
 10. Timber [1620-35?]- Sp. I, 47. 
 
 11. Epistle Dedicatory of the Rival Ladies [1664]. K. I, 4. 
 
 12. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 294-298.
 
 74 The RUe of Classical English Criticism 
 
 tnit'tsniansliip by lacking "art, facility, ornament," or they may 
 1)1' "r-nperfhious. obscure, ambitions, or needless." 
 
 To our modern ideas there must be in art not only craftsraan- 
 sliij) and the art to conceal the craftsmanship, but also the 
 spiritual qualitj^ — the sine qua non of art — mood. Of this we 
 find, as might almost be expected in a severely classical age, 
 almost no recognition.'^ Sir William Alexander in his Aiiacri- 
 .s/.s." recognizes a "generous rapture" in verse, but this seems 
 hardly more than a superficial observation to the effect that 
 l)oetry has moving power. More regard is had for the mood of 
 the audience.'"'^ One thing suits "pleasant" persons, another sad, 
 .'uother wrathful and another gentle ; and it is the business of the 
 poet to take account of this. ^loreover, he must exhibit "beauty, 
 sweetness and affection." Again :'^ "A poet should delight in 
 all places as well in sun as shadow. ' ' 
 
 Returning now to the matter of craftsmanship, we learn next 
 that a poet's work should have outline.'^ Language [by which 
 is probably meant details in general] is but the apparel of poetry, 
 and must be removed b}^ the critic who wishes to discover the 
 "sinews," the strength. 
 
 Moreover, style itself, to have value, must be condensed, must 
 exclude non-essentials. In handling material there may be "too 
 exquisite diligence."'*' The same writer's warning'^ against 
 superfluities in verse has just been cited. Ben Jonson's-" ex- 
 pressions on the point are, as usual, rough but vigorous : A 
 writer should exhibit a style from which you can extract noth- 
 ing without manifest loss. "We should therefore speak what we 
 can the nearest way, so as we keep our gate, not leap ; for too 
 short may as well be not let into the memory, as too long not kept 
 
 13. Cf. liovi^evrr, the delij?htfully ingenuous recognition of mood by Mere [Quoted, 
 Sp. xcv] : "Why do you su])pose that Rometimes in reading venses, they often bore 
 one extremely, although everything in them appears fine and regular? I fancy 
 this must be caused by a certain latent clumsiness, which is only perceived by senti- 
 ment, and which thosfv learned people who have much art and little taste do 
 not feel." 
 
 14. [16.34]. Sp. I, 182. 
 
 15. Webbe, l. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 292. 
 
 16. J'). 296. 
 
 17. .•\lc.\ander, Annrrisii; [16.14?]. Sp. I, 182. 
 
 18. Wcbbe. /. r. [1586]. Sm. I, 291. 
 
 19. /'/. 298. 
 
 20. limber [1620-35?]. Sp. I, 39.
 
 style 75 
 
 ill. Whatsoever loses tlie {?race and clearness converts into a ri<J- 
 dle; the obscurity is marked, but not the value. That [)erishes 
 and is past by, like the pearl in the table. Our style should be 
 like a skein of silk, to be carried and found by the right thread, 
 not raveled and perplexed ; then all is a knot, a heap." 
 
 Dryden also advocates restraint-^ and exclusion of non-essen- 
 tials.-- Such principles appear to us as truisms, but are dis- 
 tinctly refreshint? when approached from the other, the medieval, 
 side, the preceding medieval literature being so often full of non- 
 essential details. 
 
 But a work of art must have somethinof more than good 
 craftsmanship, an ability to conceal craftsmanship and concise- 
 ness. The material must be unified. 
 
 Of the famous three writers in the drama we have but little 
 discussion, until after the Restoration, when French influences 
 entered. This is not surprising, as we know now^' that the three 
 unities were developed in Renaissance literature and entered 
 Western Europe chiefly through France. The Aristotelian 
 theory, to which, or to the Latin versions of which, the Eliza- 
 bethans Seem to have gone directly, maintained only unity of 
 action. But the Aristotelian theory did support unity of action. 
 Consequently we have such unity-* mentioned and upheld in the 
 sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. 
 
 According to Aristotle,-^ a play should have unity of plot ; it 
 should be "complete in itself," that is, should have be^'inning, 
 middle and end; and should be "of appreciable magnitude," 
 which means that it should be grasped both in part and as a 
 whole. Unity of time and unity of place are not required by 
 Aristotle. A remark of his to the effect that the action of plays 
 fills one day, was simply an historical observation concerning 
 Greek plays, not an enunciation of principle.-'' Ben Jonson,-* 
 in treating of unity of action, merely quotes Aristotle. This 
 
 21. Bohn, I. c. 68. 
 
 22. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II. 139. 
 
 23. See Spingarn's chapter on "The Theory of the Drama." Lit. Crit. of Ihf 
 Renaissance. 
 
 24. Sir Philip Sidney, however, advocated all three unities. [Apology. 1583-95. 
 Sm. I, 197-198.] 
 
 25. Bosanquet, nistory of ^Esthetic, 64. From Aristotle's Poetica. 
 
 26. Spingarn, Lit. Crit. in the Renaissance, 90. 
 
 27. Saintsbury II, 203.
 
 76 The Rise of Classical Ejiglish Criticism 
 
 somewhat vague sort of unity was, in the hands of Sidney,^^ more 
 specifically unity of plot. Plot, according to Sidney, should be 
 unified by the specific principle of centering it about a single 
 important act [our point of climax]. The view is quoted from 
 Horace. 
 
 "By example," says Sidney, "this will be best expressed. I 
 have a story of young Polidorus, delivered for safety's sake, with 
 great riches, by his father Priamus to Polimnestor, king of 
 Thrace, in the Trojan war time. He, after some years, hearing 
 the overthrow of Priamus, for to make the treasure his own, 
 murders the child ; the body of the child is taken up by Hecuba ; 
 she the same day finds a slight to be revenged most cruelly of the 
 tyrant : where now would one of our tragedy writers begin, but 
 with the delivery of the child? Then should he sail over into 
 Thrace, and so spend I know not how many years and travel 
 numbers of places. But where doth Euripides? Even with the 
 finding of the body, leaving the rest to be told by the spirit of 
 Polidorus. This need no further to be enlarged ; the dullest wit 
 may conceive it." 
 
 Dryden-^ is equally specific. A plot must be not merely one 
 man's life, but a "single action" of it. And this action must 
 "depend" upon some signal and long-expected day.^° In pursu- 
 ance of this plan, the long, slow development that leads to a 
 climax must be omitted from the action. At the same time ven- 
 eration for the real forbids that it be ignored. Murder, for ex- 
 ample, does not, with the responsible cla.ss of persons who appear 
 in tragedies, come about as the result of sudden emotion alone, 
 but as the climax to some long, and generally slow, growth of 
 hatred or ambition. Hence the familiar device by which ante- 
 cedent events are narrated by some actor. Tliis Dryden"^ 
 mentions, but with the comment, the pertinence of which is still 
 fresh, that such narratives are tiresome. He even advises against 
 
 28. AvoXo'iV [1583-95]. Sin. I, 198. 
 
 29. Preface to Troilns and Cressida [1679]. K. I, 207. C/. also A Parallel of 
 Poetry and Painting [169.5]. K. II, 139, 152. 
 
 30. EHHoy of Dram. P. [1668], Neandpr — Dryden — speaking. K. I, 87. 
 
 31. lb. 62, Lisideius [Sedley] speaking.
 
 Style 77 
 
 the choice of a subject whicli necessitates such narratives." 
 Dryden does not, liowever, while recognizing' the necessity for an 
 unifying climax, seem to recogni/e the sort of double climax that 
 appears when there is a climax in tne third act and what \^ 
 equivalent to another at the final outcome in the fifth. Accord- 
 ing to him, every act should lead higher in point of intensity." 
 until the final solution comes as a climax in the fifth act. 
 
 There must be, he also observes, suspense throughout: 
 
 "When the audience is brought into despair that the business 
 can naturally be effected, then, and not before, the discovery is 
 made." 
 
 That is, the plot must present a situation that seems insoluble. 
 Then at the very end the solution must come. But more,^* when 
 it comes, it must seem so natural and inevitable that "no one of 
 the audience would think the poet could have missed it." If 
 there be an underplot,^^ it is to be subservient to the major plot, 
 and should help its development. 
 
 Another sort of unity that should be preserved is the moral :'* 
 "The poet is bound, and that ex officio, to give his reader some 
 one precept of moral virtue, and to caution him against some 
 one particular vice or folly. Other virtues, subordinate to the 
 first, may be recommended under that chief head; and other 
 vices or follies may be scourged, besides that which he princi- 
 pally intends. But he is chiefly to inculcate one virtue, and in- 
 sist on that." 
 
 Concerning the three unities as a group, much has l>een writ- 
 ten: and to them, probably undue importance has been at- 
 tributed. In actual fact they do not play a great part in Eng- 
 lish criticism, however great the part they play in English 
 classical drama. The part they do play is, however, indicated 
 with a precision which is deligh.tful after the haziness and am- 
 biguity of many kindred dicta of the period. 
 
 32. The lack of vohime and the inadequacy of the provocation for the action 
 produced, which we so often feel in trnRedie.s, is due Inrcelv to this lark of preliminary 
 development. How this lack can be made up and how the tragedy may be made 
 to represent a cumulative, instead of a momentary, grief, rage or horror, as the 
 novel does, is still an open problem. 
 
 33. lb. 88. Neander — Dryden — speaking. 
 
 34. lb. 86. 
 
 35. A Discourse Conceriiinif the Original and Progrett of Salirf [1693]. K. 
 II, 102. 
 
 36. lb. 104.
 
 78 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 According to Sidno}^''" the unities sliould be preserved. But 
 :>idn('y ])raises Gorboduc as the best English play he has seen, 
 "c'linibin«r to tlie heiirlit of Seneca" | ! This was the Latin 
 di-ainatist, whom the literati of the Renaissance so inexplicably 
 admired]. Gorboduc, however, is " defections," and "grieves" 
 Sidney, because it is faulty in place and time, time being, he 
 ihiiiks. an Aristotelian precept. Jjcu Jonson''^ advocates unity 
 of action. He also advocates unit.y of time [the one day period], 
 luit thinks there should be time for digression and episodes. He 
 does not formally require unity of place. Milton explicitly ac- 
 cepts the classical unity of time.''" 
 
 Sir Robert Howard, on the other hand, at almost the same 
 (late, assumes the modern romantic attitude. If the dramatist 
 departs from reality to extend his play over twenty four hours 
 and two rooms, why not as well over a thousand years and two 
 kingdoms.*'^ 
 
 Dryden's discussion of the unities appears first in the Essay 
 of Dramatic Poesy. Crites, there, one of the speakers in the 
 dialogue, speaking for the ancients, states the conventional doc- 
 trine of the unities, but elucidates it somewhat in tlie matter 
 of unit}^ of place.^^ There can be no great change of place, he 
 says, because the narrow limits of the time will not give the 
 characters time to go to a distant place. According to this view. 
 
 37. Apolnrjji [1583-95]. Sm. I. 197. Sidney was the first English critic to 
 mention tlie three unities. His knowledge of them came from Castelvetro [Spingarn, 
 llixl. iif Lit. Crit. in the Renaissance, 290]. 
 
 38. Spingarn. Hist, of Lit. (lit. in the Ilcnaissnnre , 191-192. 
 
 39. Preface to Samson Agonistes [1671]. Sp. I, 209. 
 
 40. Without sulscrihing to the exaggeration, we ma.v applaud the logic. Need- 
 less to sa.v though, a play extended over a thousand years, or a play that began 
 in Germany and ended in America — unless the action were of a special and unusual 
 sort to justify the practice — would to us seem a monstrosity. We accept Shake- 
 speare's shift in Othello from Venice to Cyprus somewhat grudgingly; but we. many 
 of us. frankly disapprove of William Vaughn Moody's .jump from the western 
 desert to Boston in The Great Divide. So also .should we somewhat resent a play 
 in which the hero grew from youth to manhood in five acts. In such matters, 
 our dramatic taste is still largely classical. 
 
 41. [1668]. K. I, 40. Lisideius [7/^. 57], another character, objects to English 
 tragicomedy as violating unity of action, since the audience, "before they are warm 
 in their concernments for one part, are diverted to another; and by that means 
 espou.se the interest of neither." But Neander [lb. 71], who speaks for Dryden, 
 defends what he rather vaguely calls Engli.sh "variety." By "variety" he plainly 
 means profuseness of detail: but whether he will admit variety in type is not clear. 
 He believes that such "variety," though likely to encourage incoherence, affords, 
 "if well ordered," greater pleasure to the audience than the French lack of variety.
 
 Style 79 
 
 unity of place is a mere detail — one of the practieai necessities — 
 of unity of time. Xeander's final decision on place and tirn«', 
 Dryden's decision, is a compromise. It is worth (piotinp in full 
 as one of the most definitely expressed of Dryden's th(K)ries.*^ 
 It follows a (piotation from Corneille's Discours des Trois 
 Unites [1660], warning? the reader that while speculative per- 
 sons may judf?e severely, they would be more lenient [than Cor- 
 neille] if they tried to produce such rigid plays and saw how 
 many beauties the rigid rules banish from the stage. 
 
 "To illustrate a little what he [Corneille] has said: by their 
 servile observations of the unities of time and place, and integ- 
 rity of scenes, they have brought on themselves that dearth of 
 plot, and narrowness of imagination, which may be observed in 
 all their plays. How many beautiful accidents might naturally 
 happen in two or three daj^s, which cannot arrive with any 
 probability in the compass of twenty-four hours? There is time 
 to be allowed also for maturity of design, which, amongst great 
 and prudent persons, such as are often represented in tragedy, 
 cannot, with any likelihood of truth, be brought to paas at so 
 short a warning. Further, b}- tying themselves strictly to the 
 unity of place, and unbroken scenes, they are forced many times 
 to omit some beauties which cannot be shown where the act 
 began; but might, if the scene were interrupted, and the stage 
 cleared for the persons to enter in another place ; and therefore 
 the French poets are often forced upon absurdities; for if the 
 act begins in a chamber, all the persons in the play must have 
 some business or other to come thither, or else they are not to be 
 shown that act; and sometimes their characters are very imfit- 
 ting to appear there. As, suppose it were the king's bed-cham- 
 ber ; yet the meanest man in the tragedy must come and dispatch 
 his business there, rather than in the lobby or courtyard (which 
 is fitter for him), for fear the stage should be cleared, and the 
 scenes broken." 
 
 Later,*"* when Dryden tries more specifically to defend his 
 limits of time, he falls into inconsistency, arguing blindly that 
 twenty-four hours are nearer three [whatever that may mean] 
 
 42. Ih. 7G. 
 
 43. Defense of an Essay of Dram. V. [1668]. K. I, 129.
 
 80 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 ill. in four thousand, an obvious but meaningless fact. Later he 
 implicitly accepts Aristotle's doctrine, or what he takes to be 
 sueh.^^ This view was written a quarter of a century later than 
 the one just quoted; but the earlier pronunciamento is not re- 
 tracted. The inconsistency may therefore be but another of the 
 now familiar sort. 
 
 Coming now more specifically to the construction of the acts 
 in a play, we learn from Webbe^^ [quoting] that a comedy with 
 more than five acts is tedious, with less is not "sufficient." 
 JMilton**^ thinks five acts sufficient for a play. Dryden has little 
 on the subject, but Corneille's treatment of Aristotle in his Dis- 
 cours de I'JJtilite et des Parties du Poeme Dramatique [1660] 
 may enlighten us as to what may w^ell have been the prevailing 
 opinion in England. Aristotle, according to Corneille, provides 
 for (1) Qualities of extension, viz. (a) prologue, (b) episode, (c) 
 exodus, (d), chorus and (2) Integral qualities, viz. (a), subject, 
 (b), customs, (c) sentiments, (d), diction, (e), music, (f), 
 decoration of the theater.*^ He states that in his own usage the 
 prologue of Aristotle has become the first act.^^ This act finishes 
 the introduction of all action, and "closes the door" to new 
 motives of action.*" 
 
 Jolm Dennis,^'' chary of too closely following the drama of an 
 alien people, objects to the chorus as a feature of Western Euro- 
 pean drama. The chorus, he observes, suited the religion and 
 temper of the Athenians ; but suppose, he adds, a Queen Elizabeth 
 of the stage, on hearing and lamenting bad news, were to behold 
 her ladies in ruffs and farthingales all begin dancing a saraband 
 to a doleful ditty. 
 
 Moreover the parts of a drama are to be well proportioned. 
 According to Webbe,°^ no part of any poem is to be "furnished" 
 
 44. A Discoume Concernin// the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. 
 II, 42. 
 
 45. I. c. 11586]. Sm. I, 293. 
 
 46. Preface to Samson Agonistes [1671]. Sp. I, 209. 
 
 47. Cf. here Phillips' predication to a good epic of diction, style, imagery, plot, 
 elevation of fancy, the amjjlitude of the subject, and the justice and impartiality 
 of the poet. [Sjj. xxxii.] 
 
 48. IHscours des Trots Unites [1660]. 
 
 49. Cf. however, Dryden's admiration of The Silent Woman because variety 
 is added by the introduction of new characters in the second ana third acts. [Essay 
 of Dram. P. I(i68. Neander — Dryden — speaking. K. I, 88.] 
 
 50. The Impnrlial Critic [1693]. Sp. Ill, 148 et seq. 
 
 51. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 291.
 
 style 81 
 
 better than another. Also''* '"J'he he^iiiiiing imist not he fool- 
 ishly handled, that is, strangely or too long." Dryden is more 
 specific when he says^' [though this, being put into the mouth of 
 Crites, in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, speaking for the ancients, 
 must be taken as merely tentative], that the whole time of the 
 drama occupied with action should be subdivided nearly evenly 
 between the five acts. 
 
 "For it is unnatural that one act, which being spoken or 
 written is not longer than the rest should be supposed longer 
 by the audience; 'tis therefore the poet's duty, to take care 
 that no act should be imagined to exceed the time in which it is 
 represented on the stage; and that the intervals and inequalities 
 of time be supposed to fall out between the acts." 
 
 Dryden also has some observations on the proportioning of 
 action : 
 
 ^*"Too many accidents, as I have said, encumber the poet, as 
 much as the arms of Saul did David ; for the variety of passions 
 which they produce are ever crossing and justling each other out 
 of the way. He who treats of joy and grief together is in a fair 
 way of causing neither of those effects." 
 Again : 
 
 ^^"Some parts of a poem require to be amply written, and with 
 all the force and elegance of words; others must be cast into 
 shadows, that is, passed over in silence, or but faintly touched." 
 
 Dryden has similar ideas in his Parallel of Poetry and Paint- 
 ing, concerning the proportionate importance and grouping of 
 the characters. His ideas on painting are from Dn Fresnoy's 
 De Arte Graphica. 
 
 -'^"The principal figure of the subject ynust appear in the 
 midst of the picture, under the principal light, to distinguish it 
 from the rest, which are only its attendants. Thus, in a tragedy, 
 or an epic poem, the hero of the piece must be advanced foremost 
 to the view of the reader, or spectator: he must outshine the rest 
 of all the characters ; he must appear the prince of them, like the 
 sun in the Copernican system, encompassed with the less noble 
 
 52. 7b. 293. 
 
 53. E.i«a!/ of Dram. P. [1668]. K. I. 39. 
 
 54. Preface to Troilus and Cressida [1679]. K. T. 223. 
 
 55. A ParaUel of Poetry and Paintivg [1695). K. II, 151. 
 
 56. lb. 142.
 
 82 The Rise of Classical Eiiglish Criticism 
 
 (uanels : because the hero is the center of the main action ; all the 
 lines from the circumference tend to him alone: he is the chief 
 object of pit}' in the drama, and of admiration in the epic poem." 
 ■''''The figures of the groups must not Ite all on a side, that 
 is, with their face and bodies all turned the same way; hut must 
 contrast each other hy their several positions. Thus in a play, 
 some characters must be raised, to oppose others, and to set them 
 off the better; according to the old maxim, contraria juxta se 
 posita magis elucescuni. Thus, in The Scornful Lady, the 
 usurer is set to confront the prodigal; thus, in my Tyrannic 
 Love, the atheist Maximin is opposed to the character of St. 
 Catherine. ' ' 
 
 Another fundamental principle in the drama is the use of 
 evident and probable causes for all effects. Corneille quotes 
 Aristotle to the effect that events should have verisimilitude 
 and be necessary,^^ which he explains further in his Discours des 
 Trois Unites [1660] by observing that according to Aristotle 
 there is great difference between events that merely follow other 
 events, and events caused by them. The idea that every effect 
 should have evident cause is^^ repeated by Dryden. According 
 to Dryden^° the audience must be satisfied that in a plot ' ' Every 
 cause was powerful enough to produce the effect it had; and 
 that the whole chain of them was with such due order linked 
 together, that the first accident would naturally beget the second, 
 till the}^ all rendered the conclusion necessary," 
 
 A special application of the same principle is made by 
 Lisideius in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy. ^'^ Neander, in replj^- 
 ing, grants a great part of the preceding contentions. As 
 Lisideius' remark precedes Neander 's almost immediately, it 
 may well be a part of the conceded matter : 
 
 "It shows little art in the conclusion of a dramatic poem, 
 when they who have hindered the felicity during the four acts, 
 
 57. Ih. 147. 
 
 58. Discours de la Tragid/ie [1660]. 
 
 59. Cf. also William Wotton, Rfflrrfions upon Ancient and Modern Learning 
 [1694]. Sp. Ill, 214. 
 
 60. Epixtle Dedicatory of the. Rival Ladies [1664]. K. I, 2. 
 
 61. [1668]. K. I, 66. C/. al.so Ilobbes' condemnation of disproportion between 
 persons and actions [Answer to Davenant's Preface to Gondibert. 1650]. Cf. also 
 Jeremy Collier, Immorality of the English Stage [1698], Sp. Ill, 278.
 
 Style 83 
 
 desist from it in the fifth, without some powerful i-ausc to takf 
 them off; and though I deny not but such reasons may be 
 found, yet it is a path that is cautiously to be trod, and the poet 
 is to be sure that he convinces the audience that the motive is 
 strong enough. As for example, the conversion of the Usurer in 
 Tine Scornful Lady, seems to me a little forced; for, being a 
 Usurer, which implies a lover of money to the highest degree of 
 covetousness (and such the poet has represented him), the ac- 
 count he gives for the sudden change is, that he has been duped 
 by the wild young fellow, which in reason might render him more 
 wary another time, and make him punish himself with harder 
 fare and coarser clothes, to get it up again; but that he should 
 look on it as a judgment, and so repent, we may expect to hear 
 of in a sermon, but I should never endure it in a play." 
 
 Another important point is that the necessity or probability 
 should extend to the entrances and exits. The passage is trans- 
 lated by Dryden and put into the mouth of Lisideius as 
 speaker in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy.^"^ The meaning of the 
 word "insist" in the first line is ambiguous; but the meaning is 
 plainly, I accept these views, but will not dwell upon them. 
 Moreover, the opinions are probably Dryden 's. Though they are 
 put into the mouth of an opposing arguer, Neander the next 
 speaker explicitly accepts "a great part" of the preceding con- 
 tentions. 
 
 "Neither will I insist on the care they take, that no person 
 after his first entrance shall ever appear, but the business which 
 brings hira upon the stage shall be evident; which, if observed, 
 must needs render all the events in the play more natural ; for 
 there you see the probability of every accident, in the cause that 
 produced it; and that which appears chance in the play, will 
 seem so reasonable to you, that you will there find it almast 
 necessary: so that in the exits of the actors you have a clear 
 account of their purpose and design in the next entrance (though, 
 if the scene be well wrought, the event will commonly deceive 
 you), for there is nothing so absurd, says Corneille, as for an 
 actor to leave the stage, only because he has no more to say." 
 
 Corneille adds^^ to the theory of cause and effect the observa- 
 
 62. [1668]. K. I, 66. Cf. here Corneille's liaixon de» seme: 
 
 63. fltACOi'M df la Tragedif [1660].
 
 84 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 lion that it pleases the audience [a fact he sometimes admits into 
 his critical theory] to have a good man come to a good end, an 
 evil to an evil end. Sometimes, thoui?h, he adds, a man is good, 
 but by fault or human foible falls into an evil that he does not 
 deserve. This famous doctrine seems to be a somewhat crudely 
 simple form of the "poetic justice"®* of Rymer. The relation 
 of acts to motives has also, according to Dryden,®^ a religious 
 purpose. We cannot be grieved by the miseries of the thoroughly 
 wicked. On the other hand, to bring miseries upon a wholly good 
 person would produce impious thoughts in the audience : ' ' They 
 would accuse the heavens of injustice." The chief character of 
 the heroic drama should have evils enough to excuse his downfall, 
 but be good enough to arouse our sympathy. 
 
 At the same time the motives are to have spontaneity,®*' for 
 "The motives which are studied are never so natural as those 
 which break out in the height of a real passion." These passions 
 are, moreover,®^ to be dra\^^l with regard to the persons who 
 exhibit them. 
 
 Besides motives, manners are to be considered. Manners, ac- 
 cording to Dryden,®^ must be, first, apparent. Every person 
 must have some inclination [the "humor" of Ben Jonson] 
 which shows in action and discourse: second, they must agree 
 with the person's "age, sex, dignity, and the other general 
 heads of manners"; for example, a king must exhibit majesty, 
 magnanimity, and jealousy of power: third, manners must, in 
 the case of an historical character, be consistent with known 
 facts. In addition to these qualities, the manners must have 
 consistency in general. IManners being the visible structure of 
 the pla3', above ground, as Dryden says, in contradistinction to the 
 plot which is the concealed foundation below ground, manners 
 are of great imnortance.®" 
 
 64. Sp. Ixxiii. 
 
 65. A ParaUel of Poetry and Painting [169.5]. K. II, 126. 
 
 66. A Parallel of Poetry and Painting [1695]. K. II, 145. 
 
 67. lb. 146. 
 
 68. Dedication of the JEnein [1697]. K. I, 213-215. Cf. also .Jeremy Collier, 
 Jmmorulitu of the Englixh Stage [1698]. Sp. Ill, 282. 
 
 69. To this conception of manners Corneille [Dixcours des Trois Unites. 1660] 
 adds a word as to habits or customs, to the effect that they explain how a man 
 has hjcome evil or good, witty or stupid, timid or brave^ constant or irresolute, of 
 good or evil politics.
 
 style 85 
 
 Another important point in connection uilli dnirnatic tech- 
 nique is brought up by Ryiner/" the arch realisi, incidentally one 
 of the best critics of his or any age. The substance of his criti- 
 cism is that intellijjible words do not help, but retard, realistic 
 action. If the words be unintelligible, they may serve "to dis- 
 tinguish, and, as it were, beat time to the action," like the drone 
 of a bagpipe ; though, adds Rymer, for such purposes Polish or 
 Spanish words or inarticulate sounds are as good as any others, 
 in fact better. "Known language" clogs or encumbers the 
 operation. But where no words interfere to spoil the concept, 
 every one interprets as he likes best.^^ The last phra.se is not 
 very intelligible, but the meaning is well brought out by an 
 illustration. Speaking of Othello, he says: "Would not a rap at 
 the door better express lago's meaning [in Othello] than 
 
 'Call aloud, 
 lago. — Do, with like timorous accent and dire yell 
 As when, by night and negligence, the fire 
 Is spied in populous cities?' 
 For What ship? Who is arrived? the answer is: 
 ' 'Tis one lago, ancient to the general. 
 He has had most favorable and happy speed ; 
 Tempests themselves, high seas, and howling winds, 
 The guttered rocks, and congregated sands. 
 Traitors ensteeped to clog the guiltless keel, 
 As having sense of beauty, do omit 
 Tiieir common natures, letting go safely by 
 The divine Desdemona.' 
 Is this the language of the exchange or the ensuring office?" 
 Dryden has the same idea. Lovers say little when they see 
 one another. "Any sudden gust of passion," says Eugenius,,'- 
 in the Essay of Dramatic Poesy," (as an exta.sy of love in an 
 unexpected meeting) cannot better be expressed than in a word 
 and a sigh, breaking one another." Then he adds, .somewhat 
 
 70. .4 Shnrt View of Tragedy [1693]. Sp. II, 211, 239. 
 
 71. Cf. in this coniu'ction, Mr. Gordon Craig's theory, first advanced in his 
 journal The Mask, that the drama .should be divorced from literature and made into 
 a separate type of art, since literature deals with sentence style; and a drama, to 
 be real, should bring in only the fragmentary phrases a person might really "se 
 under stress of emotion or excitement, or in other dramatic situations. 
 
 72. [1668]. K. I, 54.
 
 86 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 superthiously : "Nature is dumb on such occasions; and to make 
 her speak, would be to represent her unlike herself." But again, 
 there are, he adds, a thousand other affairs of lovers when they 
 ought to talk, such as "jealousies, complaints, contrivances, and 
 the like. ' ' Not to talk on these occasions would be "to be want- 
 ing to their own love and to the expectation of the audience," 
 the last because the audience wishes to see the movements of 
 their minds. Similarly^^ "It is unnatural for any one in a gust 
 of passion to speak long together, or for another in the same 
 condition to suffer him, without interruption." Yet again:''* 
 "No man is at leisure to make sentences and similes, when his 
 soul is in an agony." 
 
 At the same time repartee is one of the chief graces of 
 comedy."'' Wit needs words ; wit is " a propriety of thoughts and 
 words. "^^ A more remarkable expression is quoted by Dryden 
 from Rapin •?'' 
 
 "It is not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and 
 the extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 
 it is the discourses, when they are natural and passionate. ' ' 
 
 Apropos of dialogue, Webbe 's striking, but not remarkable, cau- 
 tion is to be noted •?^ ' ' Let not more persons speak together than 
 four for avoiding confusion." 
 
 The ideas of epic poetry seem to have been largely a develop- 
 ment of the theory of the drama. In Davenant's Preface to 
 Gondii erf '^ this tlieory is specifically elaborated. The pleasure 
 of reading a completely and scientifically stated theory is so rare 
 in the period v\^e are considering, that I shall quote Davenant's 
 theory in full. In modelin-z' his poom after the drama he lias 
 not only observed the "symmetry" of the drama "proportioning 
 five books to five acts and cantos to scenes, the scenes having 
 their number ever governed by occasion, — but all the shadow- 
 
 73. lb., Neander speaking, 72. 
 
 74. Preface to Troilus and Grensida [1679]. K. I, 223. See also Preface to the 
 Fables [1700]. K. II, 2.57. 
 
 7.5. Essay of Dram. P. [1668], Neander speaking. K. I, 72. 
 
 76. Preface to Albion and Alhnnius [1685]. K. I, 270. Cf. Sidney Smith's 
 similar definition of wit, — as distinct from humor, — which involves a perception of 
 incongruit.v [On Wit and Humor'i. 
 
 77. II cads of an Ansvter to Rymer. Bohn, I. c, 108. 
 
 78. I. c. [1.586]. Sm. I, 293. 
 
 79. [1650]. Sp. II, 17. Aristotle sa.vs that some of the parts of epic and 
 tragedy are the same [Poetics, v, xxiii, xxiv].
 
 style 87 
 
 ings, liappy strokes, secret graces, aud even the drapery, which 
 together make the second beauty, I have, I hope, exactly fol- 
 lowed ; and those compositions of second beauty I observe in the 
 drama to be the imder-walks, interweaving, or correspondence 
 of lesser design in scenes, not the great motion of the main plot 
 and coherence of the acts. 
 
 "The first act is the general preparative, by rendering the 
 chiefest characters of persons, and ending with something that 
 looks like an obscure promise of design. The second begins with 
 an introducement of new persons, so finishes all the characters, 
 and ends wath some little performance of that design which was 
 promised at the parting of the first act. The third makes a 
 visible correspondence in the under- walks, or lesser intrigues, of 
 persons, and ends with an ample turn of the main design and 
 expectation of a view. The fourth, ever having occasion to be the 
 longest, gives a notorious turn to all the under-walks, and a 
 counterturn to that main design which changed in the third. 
 The fifth begins with an entire diversion of the main and de- 
 pendent plots, then makes the general correspondence of the 
 persons more discemable, and ends with an easy untying of 
 those particular knots which made a contexture of the whole, 
 leaving such satisfaction of probabilities with the spectator as 
 may persuade him that neither fortune in the fate of the persons, 
 nor the writer in the representment, have been unntaural or 
 exorbitant. To these Meanders of the English stage I have cut 
 out the walks of my poem, which in this description may seem 
 intricate and tedious, but will, I hope, when men take pains to 
 visit what they have heard described, appear to them as pleasant 
 as a summer passage on a crooked river, wliere going about and 
 turning back is as delightful as the delay of parting lovers. ' ' 
 
 Following this comes a brief sketch of the purpose of the 
 "Argument" prefixed to the individual canto. The argument 
 should contain hints of the design of the poem, hut should men- 
 tion ratlier persons than actions, so as not to anticipate the 
 subject. 
 
 Hobbes,^" in his Answer to Darcnanf, admits that the figure 
 [organization] of an epic poem and a tragedy ought to be the 
 
 80. [1650]. Sp. IT, 55.
 
 88 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 same. The idea of unity, corresponding roughly to the drama- 
 tist's unity of action, is the conventional rhetorician's unity,"' 
 Dryden goes, however, a bit further.^- The episodes or unaer- 
 actions of an heroic poem must be "either sq necessary, that, 
 without them, the poem must be imperfect, or so convenient, that 
 no others can be imagined more suitable to the place in which 
 they are. ' ' 
 
 In the treatment of satire there is a curious modification of 
 this. After certain conventional observations, Dryden^^ says, of 
 it: 
 
 "If other vices occur in the management of the chief, they 
 sliould only be transienth^ lashed, and not be insisted on, so as to 
 make the design double. ' ' 
 
 In the matter of general treatment in an heroic poem, Dryden 
 quotes Segrais' preface to his translation of the JEneid,^* to the 
 effect that the style of the heroic poem should be more lofty than 
 that of the drama. The reason is that the actor must speak 
 plainly, for the words are to be "taken flying" by the ear, 
 whereas in reading a poem we have ' ' leisure to digest. ' ' 
 
 The discussion, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries 
 of sentence style and choice of words, like much of the writing, 
 is somewhat general in substance, but not lacking in explicitness. 
 We have, first in point of generalit3^ the doctrine of what the 
 rhetorician to-da}'' calls tone, in early criticism frequentl}^ called, 
 somewhat obscurely, by the term decorum, which also carried the 
 idea of many other things as well. 
 
 Webbe^'^ believes in such decorum of words, thinking that big 
 matters should be treated with ' ' boisterous words. ' '^*^ Moreover 
 the speech of the characters in a poem is to accord Avith the 
 dignity, age, sex, fortune, condition, place, country, and the like, 
 
 81. C/. for example, Sm. xxxiv; I, 131. 
 
 82. Dedication to the JEnein [1697]. K. II, 154, 155. Cf. also Sir Richard 
 Blackmore, Preface to Prince Arthur [1695]. Sp. Ill, 238. 
 
 83. A Discourse Concerning the Orifjiyial and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. 
 II, 102. 
 
 84. Dedication of the 2Eneis [1697]. K. II, 165. 
 
 85. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 291, 292. 
 
 86. Note the finer and more courtly Puttenham's .<?trictiire on this, where he 
 warns the reader against inflated language for stately effects. \_L c-t 173.]
 
 Style 89 
 
 of eacli person. Wlietstoni' urges the preservation of eharacter iu 
 Ki)eeches in comedy :"" 
 
 "Grave old men should instruct, youn^ men shouhl sliow tin- 
 imperfections of youth, strumpets sliould he lascivious, hoys un- 
 liappy, 'ind clowns should speak disorderly." 
 
 Puttenham, on this point,**^ is singularly pleasing. Style, ac- 
 cording to him, must reflect the man. A grave man has a grave 
 style, a vehement man a vehement style, and so on. Yet style is 
 also conformable to the subject matter: though it must be remem- 
 bered that a writer chooses subjectt matter congenial to him and so 
 congenial to his &\y\e. A high minded man writes by taste of 
 lofty matters, a base of base, and so on. Style may be regarded 
 as high, mean or base style,**^ though other qualities also appear 
 as the plain, obscure, rough, smooth, facile, hard, plentiful, bar- 
 ren, rude, eloquent, strong, feeble, vehement, cold. The high, 
 mean, and base styles are to be used for high matters and great 
 men, mean matters and mean men but "of the civiler and better 
 sort," and low matters of artificers, serving men, and the like, 
 respectively. Hymns, histories, and tragedies are to be in the 
 high style, comedies and interludes and poetry of loves "and 
 such like" in mean style,^" and eclogues and pastoral poems in 
 the low style. Certain phrases and figures are common to all 
 three styles, some only to one. For example, puffed up or 
 affected phrases are ridiculous in the high style, also dark and 
 unaccustomed words, or rustic and homely [home-like] words, or 
 sentences that are too merry and light or infamous and unshame- 
 faced. Such phrases are unbecoming to princes or to those who 
 write of princes or of great estates or of grave and weighty mat- 
 ters. Set speeches, such as those in Parliament, he treats more 
 specifically.^^ They need a style that is more than conversa- 
 tional; they need (1) language, (2) style, (3) figures. Ben 
 Jonson, in his somewhat platitudinous fashion, echoes the phrase, 
 Style shows the man,^- which is merely another and vaguer way 
 
 87. Of Comedy [1578]. Sm. I, 60. Cf. Collier, Immorality of Ike SngHsk 
 Stage [1698]. Sp. III. 282. 
 
 88. I. c. [1589]. Sm. II, 144-162. 
 
 89. Saintsbury, II, 186. Cf. also Ascham, Schoolmattrr (1570). Sm. 
 I, 23-25. 
 
 90. Note especially Putfenham's apt anecdote on p. 144. 
 
 91. Saintsbury II, 85. 
 
 92. Saintsbury II, 202. Timber [1620 35?]. Sp. I. 41.
 
 90 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 of referring to tlie same quality, tone. Milton satirizes the poet 
 niio cannot maintain his flight, but drops into frigidity.^^ 
 Drummond attacks those who make their characters speak as 
 Avell as themselves.^* Phillips^^ also observes tone, and specifies 
 that a poem "be not inflate or jingling with an empty noise of 
 words, nor creepingly low and insipid, but of a majesty suitable 
 to the grandeur of the subject." Nor must the poet be afraid of 
 "vulgarly unknown" terms for fear of frightening the ladies. 
 The highest stj'le, according to the same writer, is "not ramping, 
 but passionately sedate and moving. ' ' Cowley^® adds a pleasing 
 observation on tone: "The truth is, for a man to write well, it is 
 necessary to be in a good humor. ' ' 
 
 In Dryden also we have tiie conception of tone. Sincerity 
 plays its part.^^ In wit the tone should be fixed by a study of the 
 character who speaks it : 
 
 °^"Low comedy especiallj^ requires, on the writer's part, much 
 of conversation with the vulgar, and much of ill nature in the 
 observation of their follies." 
 
 This yAi varies with persons : 
 
 "^"A witty coward, and a witty brave, must speak differ- 
 entlj'." Dryden 's successor, Congreve,"'° has some pointed obser- 
 vations on the subject. He defines humor as Ben Jonson did, 
 then observes : 
 
 "A character of a splenetic and peevish humor should have 
 a satirical wit. A jolly and sanguine humor should have a face- 
 tious wit. The former should speak positively ; the latter, care- 
 lessly : for the former observes and shows things as they are ; 
 the latter rather overlooks nature, and speaks things as he would 
 have them, and his wit and humor have both of them a less alloj^ 
 of judgment than the others." 
 
 Satire has a different tone :^°^ 
 
 93. Apology for Smectymnuus [1642]. Sp. I, 204. 
 
 94. Ben Jonson's Conversations with Drummond [1619]. Sp. I, 210, 212, 215 
 
 95. Preface to Theatrum Poetarum [1675]. Sp. II, 269, 270. 
 
 96. Preface to Poems [1656]. Sp. II, 81. 
 
 97. A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. 
 11, 77. 
 
 98. Preface to An Evening's Love [1671]. K. I, 135. 
 
 99. lb. 140. 
 
 100. Concerning Uumor in Comedy [1695]. Sp. Ill, 244, 246. 
 
 101. A Discourse Concerning the Original and Progress of Satire [1693]. K. 
 II, 92, 93.
 
 Siylf 91 
 
 "The nicest and most delicate touches of satire consist in fine 
 raillery." Yet this fineness of raillery is not offensive. "A 
 witty man is tickled while he is hurt in this manner, and a fool 
 feels it not." At the same time it is to be observed that*" "To 
 entertain an audience perpetually with humor, is to carry them 
 from the conversation of gentlemen." Perhaps the most sane 
 observation on wit in general is that of Sir William Temple r*"' 
 Besides the "heat of invention and liveliness of wit," there must 
 be "coldness of good sense and soundness of judgment." 
 
 "Without the forces of wit, all poetry is flat and languish- 
 ing ; without the succors of judgment, it is wild and extravagant. 
 The true wit of poesy is, that such contraries must meet to com- 
 pose it, a genius both penetrating and solid ; in expression both 
 delicacy and force ; and the frame or fabric of a true poem must 
 have something both sublime and just, amazing and agreeable." 
 
 Another important matter in style is conciseness. King 
 James's dictum is interesting on this point, both for its plainness 
 and for its character as the dictum of a poet :^°* 
 
 "You must also take heed to frame your words and sentences 
 according to the matter: As in flyting*"^ and invectives your 
 words to be cut short, and vigorous^"'. For those which are cut 
 short, I mean by such words as these: I'se ne'er care, for, I shall 
 never care, if your subject were of love or tragedies. Because in 
 them your words must be drawn long, which in flyting must be 
 short." Ben Jonson also observes the value of brevity,'"^ and 
 adds, — speaking of letters to a superior, — that brevity is well 
 obtained by avoiding idle compliments, prefaces, protestations, 
 parentheses, superfluous circuit of figures, and digressions. In 
 such a letter the conjunctions also may be freely omitted. 
 
 There is also a considerable amount of discussion in this 
 period of figures of speech. Sir Philip Sidney extols the figure 
 of synecdoche, thereby showing his appreciation of the concrete, 
 
 102. Preface to An Evening's Lore [1671], K. I, 140. 
 
 103. Of Poetry. Works, Vol. III. London, 1877. p. 402. 
 
 104. A Short Treatise on Ver/ie [1584]. Sm. I, 217. 
 
 105. Poetic invective. Sm. I, Note. p. 406. 
 
 106. "Hurland ouer Iieuch." Sm. Ih. "Dnshinc (driven violently) over cragj:>- 
 Steeps." 
 
 107. Timber [1620-35?]. Sp. I. 26, 46.
 
 92 The Rise of Classical Eyiglish Criticism 
 
 oin' of the most characteristic traits of a good imaginative writer. 
 Says Sidney :'"^ 
 
 "Let but Sophocles bring you Ajax on a stage, killing and 
 whipping sheep and oxen, thinking them the army of Greeks, 
 Avith their chieftain Agamemnon and Menelaus, and tell me if you 
 have not a more familiar insight into anger than finding in the 
 •Sfhoolmen his genus and difference." lie is, however, chary 
 of similes^"^ dra\Mi from herbarists and from bestiaries. 
 
 There is a suggestion that Elizabethan critics are a little 
 Aveary of over-figurative language and wit :"° "conceits infamous 
 and vicious, or ridiculous and foolish, or of no good example 
 ;iud doctrine" are. according to Puttenham,"^ daily seen. 
 
 Jonson"- commends — in the matter of figures — a man who 
 never "went out of the high waA' of speaking, but for some great 
 necessity or apparent profit," and adds later a warning against 
 over-elaboration of language. A further warning quoted from 
 Quintilian. against mixed metaphors, follows. Bolton/^^ re- 
 ferring to the "rich conceit and splendor of courtly expressions" 
 in Philip Sidney's Arcadia, warns the reader, somewhat mal 
 apropos that such ornaments should not be used by an historian. 
 "Q. Elizabeth" he praises for a combination of vitalit.y with 
 elegance. The queen had died long ])efore this was published. 
 Rej^nolds^^* echoes a somewhat conventional distinction between 
 the essence of poetry and the accidents, the accidents being 
 figures of speech, types of rhyme and similar "adjuncts of 
 poesy. "^^^ Thomas Sprat^'" thinks this "trick of metaphors" 
 easilv obtained and vicious. 
 
 lOS. Apoloffi/ 11583-95]. Sip. I, 165. 
 
 109. lb. 202. 
 
 110. Cf. Gosse, Edmund, From Shalexperre to Pope: An Inquiry into Ihr 
 Causes and Phenomena of the Rixe of Classical Poetry in Enffland. Cambridge: 
 1885, p. 13. 
 
 111. /. c. [1589]. Sm. II, 34. For a complete list of Puttenham's 108 figures 
 of speech, see Arber Reprint, Ch. Ill, p. 175, rt seq. 
 
 112. Timber [1620-35]. Sp. I, 24, 33, 40. Cf. also Spingarn's citation from 
 Rapin [lb. xlii] to the effect that a Christian preacher ought to avoid what is 
 sparkling in exjjression or thought, and to speak clearly and unaffectedly. 
 
 113. IIi/i„rcritica [1618?]. Sp. I, 107. 
 
 114. Itythomystes [1633?]. Sp. I, 142. 
 
 115. Cf. also Alexander, Anacrisis [1634?]. Sp. I, 182. 
 
 116. History of the Royal Society [1667]. Sp. II, 117. Cf. a similar reaction, 
 not against figures. Ijut against the kindred "wit" in the Earl of Miilgrave's poetical 
 Essay upon Poetry. [Sp. II, 294.]
 
 Style 93 
 
 Dryden approves of figures, "'riie holdcst strokes ol" poetry 
 'most delight.""' lie defends liyperl)oIe as no departure from 
 truth, and tlien proceeds, nearly two (u-nturies ahead of time, to 
 give a fairly accurate statement of Kuskin's theory of tlie 
 pathetic fallacy. In a passion, he says, a man is not cool enough, 
 either to reason rightly, or to talk cahnly. Aggravations are then 
 in their proper places; interrogations, exclamations, or a dis- 
 ordered connection of discourse, are graceful there, because 
 they are natural. The sum of all depends on what before 1 
 hinted, that this boldness of expression is not to be blamed, if 
 it be managed by the coolness and discretion which is neces.sary 
 to a poet. ' ' 
 
 At the same time figures should be kept within bounds."* 
 
 "As in a room contrived for state, the height of the roof 
 should bear a proportion to the area ; so, in the heightonings of 
 poetry, the strength and vehemence of the figures should be 
 suited to the occasion, the subject, and the persons." 
 
 Again he finds"'' Ariosto's style "luxurious, without ma.iosty 
 or decency;" and Tasso is condemned as — apart from other 
 faults — "full of conceits, points of epigram, and witticisms; all 
 which are not only below the dignity of heroic verse, but con- 
 trary to its nature." He approves of figures, but thinks they 
 should be concise.^-" To this King James adds the useful oKser- 
 vation that comparisons '-^ should be appropriate, neither higher 
 nor lower than the subject. 
 
 Another observation on style, rather remarkable for this age, 
 is Puttenham's to the effect that language ought to be tunable 
 to the ear."-. The chapter heading under which this occurs 
 states that the rhetorical points therein treated are for all good 
 utterance written or spoken. Plainly we have here an observa- 
 tion on prose rhythm. 
 
 117. The Author's Aroloofl for Ileroic Portry and Porlir Lieentf. [1677]. 
 K. I, 183, 185. 186. 
 
 118. Dedication to the SpanUh Friar [1C81]. K. I. 247. Bohn. J. e.. 114. 
 
 119. A Dvicourse Concerning the Oriijinal and Progre»» of Satire [1693]. 
 K. II, 27. 
 
 120. Ih. 85. 
 
 121. /Short Treatixe on Verse [1584]. Sm. I, 219. 
 
 122. I. c. [1589]. Sm. II. 162.
 
 94 The Rise of Classical Eyiglish Criticism 
 
 ^Most of the discussion upon words^-'' in the England of the 
 sixteenth and seventeenth centuries turns upon the use of strange, 
 obsolete or foreign words. ^-* The matter is well summed up by 
 Wilson in his Art of Rhetoric :^^^ 
 
 "Among all other lessons, this should first be learned, that 
 we never affect any strange ink-horn terms, but to speak as is 
 commonly received, neither seeking to be over fine, nor yet being 
 over careless, using our speech as most men do, and ordering our 
 Avits as the fewest have done. Some seek so far outlandish Eng- 
 lish, that they forget altogether their mothers' language. And I 
 dare swear this, if some of their mothers were alive, they were 
 not able to tell what they say ; and yet these fine English clerks 
 will say they speak in their mother tongue — if a man should 
 charge them for counterfeiting the king's English. * * * * 
 The unlearned or foolish phantastical that smells but of learning 
 (such fellows as have seen learned men in their days) will so 
 Latin their tongues that the simple cannot but wonder at their 
 talk, and think surely they speak bj' some revelation. I know 
 them that think rhetoric to stand wholly upon dark words; and 
 he that can catch an ink-horn term by the tail him they count to 
 be a fine Englishman and a good rhetorician." 
 
 Other warnings of the same nature are given by Gascoigne^^^ 
 against obsolete and strange words used where there is no just 
 occasion for them, by E. K.,^^^ commenting on Spenser's 
 Eclogues, against foreign words, by Sidney^-* against over-orna- 
 mentation in words, by Puttenham^-'* against rustic words and 
 the affectations of scholars, especially words borrowed from 
 foreign tongues, and b.y Samuel DanieP^" against strange and 
 foreign words. Webbe,'''^ however, like a good pedant, takes the 
 
 123. On this .subject cf. Edward E. Hale, junr., "Ideas on Rhetoric in the 
 Sixteenth Century." Part I: Vocabulary. Puh. Mod. Lang. Assoc. XVIII, 424. 
 This work was unfortunately discontinued by Professor Hale on the completion of 
 his Part I. 
 
 124. See Sm. Ivii. 
 
 125. Collins, Churton, Essays and Literary Fragments, 10. Cited also by 
 Hale, /. c. 
 
 126. The Making of Verse [157.5]. Sm. I, 52. 
 
 127. Epistle to Harvey [1579]. Sm. I, 130. 
 
 128. Apology [1583-95]. Sm. I, 202. 
 
 129. I. r. [1589]. Sm. II, 150, 151. 
 
 130. A Defense of Rhyme [1603?]. Sm. II, 384. 
 
 131. I. c. [1586]. Sm. I, 298.
 
 Style 95 
 
 opposite side, and says, quotinf; Ilorace [via Georgius Fabrieius 
 Cliemnicensis].^^^ "We should not gape after the phrases of the 
 simpler sort," but write for learned men." In the matter of 
 rustic diction we have a pretty contradiction, E. K., the com- 
 mentator on Spenser's pastorals, praising the obsolete words of 
 that poet as most fit for rustic shepherds,"^ and Sidney''* re- 
 fusing to credit the poet with reasonableness in his "old rustic 
 language" since Theocritus, Virgil and Sanazar did not affect 
 such language. 
 
 On this matter of using strange words Ben Jonson's dicta 
 and Dryden's may be noted separately, since those critics had 
 the most complete and careful theories, and were, moreover, by 
 reason of their character as playwrights better qualified than 
 most to speak upon the subject. The "true artificer," accord- 
 ing to Jonson^^^ avoids phrases that are "faint, obscure, obscene, 
 sordid, humble, improper, or effeminate," also obsolete words; 
 he is also chary of coining new words. In his Poctaster^^'^ he 
 says: 
 
 "You must not hunt for wild outlandish terms, 
 To stuff out a peculiar dialect; 
 But let your matter run before your words. 
 And if, at any time, you chance to meet 
 Some Gallo-Belgic phrase, you shall not straight 
 Rack your poor verse to give it entertainment, 
 But let it pass: and do not think yourself 
 Much damnified, if you do leave it out, 
 When nor your understanding nor the sense 
 Could well receive it. This fair abstinence. 
 In time, will render you more sound and clear." 
 Dryden^^^ advocated the rejection of old words or phrases that 
 are ill sounding or improper and the admission of new words 
 that are better in these respects or that are more significant; but 
 with the qualification that the writer must go slowly and wait 
 
 132. De Re Poetica Libri Septem. [1560] 
 
 l."!3. Epistle to Harvey [1579]. Sm. I. 128. 
 
 134. Apology [158395]. Sm. I, 196. 
 
 135. Timber [1620-35?]- Sp. I, 23, 38. 
 
 136. V. Ill [1601]. Sm. II, 397. 
 
 137. Defence of the Epilogue [1672]. K. I, 164. 170.
 
 96 The Rise of Classical English Criticism 
 
 until oustom has familiarized new words.' '° ITe also approves of 
 llio borrowing of forei«rn words,^-'*' since the English vocabulary 
 is not resplendent enough for the English poet, but the borrow- 
 ing must be cautious and sparing, and the borrowed words must 
 be beautiful in Latin and in agreement with the English idiom;"" 
 tiiey should also meet the approval of friends of the poet who 
 know both languages. 
 
 A defense of onomatopfeia is also to be found in criticism at 
 this time, in the opinions of Carew'^' and Dryden"-. Carew 
 tinds the various interjections expressive for the corresponding 
 emotions. In general langtiage also English is suggestive. The 
 liiing tliat seems to have caught Carew 's attention here is com- 
 pound terms, such as moldwarp which expresses the nature of 
 the beast, handkcrclier, which shows the thing and its use, and 
 similar words.' ^^ Dryden also praises such qualities, in quoting 
 Ovid's praise of Virgil. 
 
 The consideration of words versus matter was also a common 
 one. Samuel Daniel' ^^ reminds us that "Eloquence and gay 
 words are not of tlie substance of wit." Davenant observes that 
 very innnature youtlis'^"' conceive wit to consist in the music of 
 words; while Dryden,"" referring to word use in wit, gravely 
 observes that "Wit is best conveyed to us in the most easy lan- 
 guage." 
 
 Words without matter are objectionable in learning. Bacon^*'^ 
 speaks somewhat suspiciously of the delusive powers of words, 
 as a modern business man might speak of "mere words," and 
 protests against the "distemper of learning" in which "men 
 study words and not matter "'^'^ Ben Jonson is distinctly scornful 
 
 I'.iH. This clause sounds contradictory, but the import is not clear. 
 
 1.^9. Dedication of the .^nevi [1697]. K. II, 234. 
 
 140. Would that the modern scientists who are creating the "New Latin" 
 language could be induced to borrow Dryden's doctrine on this point! 
 
 141. The ExrMeriey of EvriHsh [1.59.5-6?] Sm. II. 287. 
 
 142. Preface to Annus Miralnlin |16G7]. K 1, 17. 
 
 143. His idea here seems to be like that of those Germans who praise their 
 language for its resourcefulness in creating naiive and therefore suggestive com- 
 j>ounds. 
 
 144. A Difrnne of lihi/m,- [1603?]. Sm. II, 372. 
 
 145. Preface to Oondihi-rt [1650]. Sp. II, 21. 
 
 146. Kxyni/ of Drmn. P. [1668], Eugenius si)eaking. K. I, 52. 
 
 147. Adrarircm'nt of Liarnim/. XIV, 11, 11605]. Saintsbury II, 194. 
 
 148. lb. I, Sp. I, 3
 
 StyU 97 
 
 over such vice,'*" and jeers especially at the empty hut riowery 
 phraseoJoPTy in which letters seem oftiTi to have l)een couclicd. 
 Such, says Jonson, "f^o a he^^_Mn<^ for some meaning, and lahor 
 to he delivered of the great hurthen of nothing." Words, he 
 adds, must, for the speech of a fictitious character, correspond 
 to the speaker.''*" 
 
 A warning is added hy Ilohhes'^' a^'ainst technical words. 
 We also have a warning against falling into commonplace repeti- 
 tion. King James^^- devotes the whole of a short chapter to the 
 matter. Finally we maj' end our chapter — somewhat ignomini- 
 ously — on puns. Dr^'den""* condemns puns, hut approves of 
 "turns" on words. Writing of this last, he speaks interastingly 
 of the manner in which he discovered the existence and character 
 of "turns." He was advised to imitate those of Waller and 
 Denham, and discovered that he had a few such turns in his 
 own plays. He then turned to Cowley, the "darling" of his 
 youth, but found only "points of wit," and "quirks of epigram," 
 puerilities, he calls them, both. Then he went to Milton, but in 
 vain ; at last his search was rewarded. In the Faerie Queene he 
 found his turns first, then in Tasso's verse; moreover he found 
 that all Italian sonnets "are on the turn of the first thought." 
 In Latin, Virgil and Ovid are the "principal fountains" of 
 turns. As he nowhere defines turns, we must be content to ob- 
 serve their nature in the examples he gives. It will be sufficient 
 to record one of his four examples : 
 
 Heu ! quantum scelus est, in viscera, viscera condi ! 
 
 Congestoque avidum pinguescere corpore corpus; 
 
 Alteriusque animantem ani mantis vivere leto. 
 
 149. Timber [1620 35?]. Saintsbury II, 207. Sp. I, 45. 
 
 150. lb. Sp. I, 37. 
 
 151. The Virtuen of an Heroic Poem [1675]. Sp. II. 68. 
 
 152. A Short TreatUe on Verse. Ch. VI [1584]. Sm. I. 220. 
 
 15.3. A DUrourxe Concerning the Original and Progreim of Satirr fl69.*?]. 
 K. II, 95. 108 109. Cf. also Gerard Langbaine, Egsay on Dryden [1691). Sp. 
 HI, 125.
 
 CHAPTER VI: VERSE TECHNIQUE 
 
 lu discussing the verse-technique^ of the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth century English critics, prosod^^ as such will he passed by ; 
 first because it comprises a part of a distinct and separate field 
 of stud}', a field as distinct from that of criticism — as avc define 
 it — as a modern book on i)rosody is from a modern book on the 
 philosophy of rhetoric ; and second, because so much of the 
 prosody, even if it could lie regarded as a part of our subject, 
 would be but a dead part, the theories expressed being in consid- 
 r'rable number wholly exploded theories ; such, for example, as 
 that concerning the use of Latin meters in English, or the for- 
 bidding of tlie license of sjdlabic equivalence [trisj'llabic sulisti- 
 tutious in iambic feet], or the use of feminine rliymes. 
 
 Concerning verse technique, apart from this, there is but 
 little said, but the little is of importance. At the threshold of 
 the subject stands King James's warning- that language should 
 not be forced or padded to fill out lines. As important is the 
 other warning that words should not be forced for rhymes.^ Put- 
 tenham* has a chapter headed How the Good Maker Will not 
 'Wrench his ^Vor(l to Help his Bhyme, Either hy Falsifying his 
 Accent, or hy Untrue Orthography.... Daniel, in his Defense of 
 Ehyme'' admits that the ancients did torture language to make 
 odes; but he defends rhj-me — even the rhymes of the sonnet — 
 and also the fixed length— as a disciplinary regulating device. 
 In fact, he adds, a poet will write the better in rhyme because 
 
 1. Cf. on this subject Srhclling, Felix E., Poetic anil Ytrie Crilicixm in the 
 Reign of Elizabeth. [Pub. of the Univ. of Pa.] 1891. Some or Professor Schelling'.s 
 ■work is du))lic:ited here, from independent evidence, however. The bulk of his work 
 deals though with prosody, the other portions l)eing for the most jiart sketcliy. 
 
 2. A Short Treatise on Verse [1584]. Sm. I, 217. 
 
 3. Webbe's treatment of rhyme has such a beautiful simplicity that it is a 
 pity to pass it by [158G. Sm. I, 275]. After writing the first line, the poet should 
 take up all possil)le rh^minK words [alphabetically for convenience] : "For example, 
 if your last word end in book, you may straightways in your mind run them over 
 thus, brook, cook, crook, hook, look, nook, pook, rook, forsook, took, awook, etc. Now 
 it is twenty to one. but always one of these shall ,iump with your former word and 
 matter in good sense. If not, then alter the first." 
 
 4. /. c. [1589]. Sm. II, 84. 
 
 5. [1603?]. Sm. II, 365. 
 
 -98-
 
 Verse Technique 99 
 
 he has to work liardcr to do it. lie admits, thouf^h, somewhat 
 relucfantly, that a tra^'edy liad best dis[)ens(' with rhynic, cxec-pt 
 in the ehorus." Drummoud,' aeeordin^' to Ben Jonson, objects to 
 stanzas and eross rhymes in that they are likely to force the 
 words; he finds couplets superior. Jonson also quotes Druin- 
 mond's objection to the sonnet as a sort of Procrustes bed, which 
 
 cuts thought to fixed lengths.* 
 
 Milton's objection to rliyme, as expressed in his Preface to 
 Paradise Lost is well known : 
 
 "Rhyme being no necessary adjunct or true ornament of 
 poem or good verse, in longer works especially, but the invention 
 of a barbarous age, to set off wretched matter and lame meter; 
 graced indeed since by the use of some famous modern poets, 
 carried away by custom, but much to their own vexation, hin- 
 drance and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for 
 the most part worse, than else they would have expressed them." 
 
 Sir Robert Howard^ objects to rhyme in a play, because it 
 suggests design and not spontaneity, and waves aside the argu- 
 ment that rhyme checks the flow of fancy and so allows judg- 
 ment to enter. Dryden, however, defends rhyme. He disap- 
 proves of forced rhyme,^° and advocates the ten foot line, in 
 which the rhymed words are far enough apart to give the poet 
 room to turn around. In the Essay of Dramatic Poesy, how- 
 ever, when Crites [Sir Robert Howard] objects to rhj'me, Nean- 
 der [Dryden] entirely overthrows all the objections," so far as 
 heroic plays are concerned, though he excludes comedy from his 
 defense. Dryden 's reasons for defending rhyme have already 
 been touched upon.^- They are so involved and inconsistent 
 that it seems scarcely worth while to repeat them here in full. 
 They may, however, be considered as summed up, so far as their 
 
 6. lb. 382. 
 
 7. [1619]. Saintsbury II, 199. 
 
 8. Cf. Danids defense of the fi.xed sonnet length [/. c. 366], which keeps 
 the sonnet passion within bounds. 
 
 9. Preface to Four New Plays [1665]. Sp. II, 102. 
 
 10. Pref. to /t;ini/* Mirnbiliji [1667]. K. I, 12, and Esuay of Dram. P. IU>(>mJ. 
 all speakers to this controversy for once apreeinp. K. 1, 35. 
 
 11. Essay of Dram. P. [1668]. K. I. 91. 94. 
 
 12. See p. 17. Note.
 
 1 00 The Rise of Classical English Criticistn 
 
 4'ssi'nce is concerned, in the following passage from his Epistle 
 Ih (licator}! to the Rival Ladies:^'^ 
 
 "The advantages which rhyme has over blank verse are so 
 many, that it were last time to name them. Sir Philip Sidney" 
 in his Defense of Poesy, gives us one, which, in my opinion, is 
 not the least considerable; I mean the help it brings to memory,^'* 
 wliich rhyme so knits up, hy the affinity of sounds, that, by re- 
 membering the last word in one line, we often call to mind both 
 the verses. Then, in the quickness of repartees (which in discur- 
 sive scenes fall very often), it has so particular a grace, and is so 
 aptly suited to them, that the sudden smartness of the answer, 
 and the sweetness of the rhyme, set off the beauty of each other. 
 Hut that benefit which I consider most in it, because I have not 
 seldom found it, is, that it bounds and circumscribes the fancy. 
 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 judgment. The great easiness of blank verse renders 
 the poet too luxuriant ; he is tempted to say many things, which 
 might better be omitted, or at least shut up in fewer words ; but 
 when the difficult\' of artful rhyming is interposed, where the 
 poet commonly confines his sense to his couplet, and must con- 
 trive that sense into such words that the rhyme shall naturally 
 follow them, not they the rhyme; the fancy then gives leisure 
 to the judgment to come in. which, seeing so heavy a tax imposed, 
 is ready to cut off all unnecessary expenses." 
 
 Plainly this is a classical doctrine, though much blurred by a 
 d&sperate attempt to reconcile the classicist's realism with the 
 classicist's idealism, a Danaidean task that no man has yet per- 
 formed. 
 
 Concerning the couplet we have two opposite opinions from 
 p]lizabethan critics, that of Gascoigne,^" who accepts the couplet 
 and adds an adhortation to use the endstopped line — both in the 
 couplet and elsewhere, — and that of Daniel,^^ who finds a long 
 
 13. [1604]. K. I, 7. It should be noted that towards the end of his career, 
 Dryden abandoned rhyme in his own plays. 
 
 14. Cf. Ch. II. 
 
 15. Cf. also Sir .John llarinpton, A ISriif Apolomi for Puilrii [1501]. Sm. 
 II. 20fi. 
 
 16. [1.37.',]. Wylie, 9. 
 
 17. I)ff--nxf of Rhilmr [1C03?]. Sm. II, 38.3.
 
 I'frsc Technique 101 
 
 series of couplets tiresome — l»ut adds that i)t'rliai)s that is due to 
 personal taste merely. Ben Jonson's"* prt-t'cntHi- for <-ouf)let8 
 over other rhymes has been notieed. 
 
 On musieal rhythm as conveyed by individual words, there 
 are some opinions at this time, daseoif^nc'-' finds that words of 
 many syllables eloy a verse. Alliteration is approved by Kinj^ 
 James;-" not alliteration merely in the first letters of words, but 
 a runninf? of a verse upon certain letters. Sir John llarinf^ton 
 points out another use rather than virtue of vers<', its forcible 
 manner of phrase," in which, if it be well made, it excelh^th 
 loose speech or prose." 
 
 18. [1619]. Saintsbury II, 199. 
 
 19. The Making of Verse [1575]. Sm. I, 51. For a possible partial explanation 
 of Gascoignes statement, see King James's Short Treatise on Verse . Sm. I, 212 213. 
 
 20. A Short Treatise on Verse [1584]. Sm. I, 218. Cf. Sidney Lanier's fa 
 mous theory of verse-tones.
 
 'J. 
 
 r 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 DATE DUE 
 
 
 OCT 16 
 
 1 ', 
 1 ; 
 
 
 
 
 / 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 P« NTEOINU S A
 
 iCaiTY 
 
 AA 000 603 796
 
 mm 
 
 iiiii