VI. DRYDEN TO THE DEATH OF JOHNSON
THE MERITS OF SIR HUDIBRAS1
(From Hudibras, Part I, Canto I, 1663)
When civil dudgeon first grew high,
And men fell out, they knew not why:
When hard words, jealousies, and fears
Set folks together by the ears,
And made them fight, like mad or drunk,
For dame Religion as for Punk;
Whose honesty they all durst swear for,
Tho' not a man of them knew wherefore:
When Gospel-Trumpeter, surrounded
With long-ear'd rout, to battle sounded,
And pulpit, drum ecclesiastic,
Was beat with fist, instead of a stick:
Then did Sir Knight3 abandon dwelling,
And out he rode a collonelling.4
A wight he was, whose very sight would
Entitle him, Mirror of Knighthood;
That never bow'd his stubborn knee
To anything but chivalry;
Nor put up blow, but that which laid
Right Worshipful on shoulder-blade:
Chief of domestic Knights, and errant,
Either for chartel® or for warrant:
Great on the bench, great in the saddle,
That could as well bind o'er, as swaddle;7
Mighty he was at both of these,
And styl'd of war as well as peace.
(So some rats of amphibious nature,
Are either for the land or water.)
But here our authors make a doubt,
Whether he were more wise or stout.
Some hold the one, and some the other;
But howsoe'er they make a pother,
The diff'rence was so small, his brain
Outweigh'd his rage but half a grain;
Which made some take him for a tool
That knaves do work with, call'd a fool.
For 't has been held by many, that
As Montaigne, playing with his cat,
Complains she thought him but an ass,
Much more she would Sir Hudibras:
For that's the name our valiant knight
To all his challenges did write.
But they're mistaken very much,
'Tis plain enough he was no such;
We grant, altho' he had much wit,
H' was very shy of using it;
As being loath to wear it out,
And therefore bore it not about;
Unless on holy-days, or so,
As men their best apparel do.
Beside, 'tis known he could speak Greek As naturally as pigs squeak:
That Latin was no more difficile,
Than to a blackbird 'tis to whistle:
Being rich in both, he never scanted
His bounty unto such as wanted;
But much of either would afford
To many, that had not one word. . . . 58 He was in logic a great critic,
Profoundly skill'd in Analytic;
He could distinguish, and divide
Of argument, a man's no horse;
He'd prove a buzzard is no fowl,
And that a Lord may be an owl;
A calf an Alderman, a goose a Justice,
And rocks, Committee-men or Trustees. He'd run in debt by disputation,
And pay with ratiocination.
All this by syllogism, true
In mood and figure, he would do.
For Rhetoric, he could not ope
His mouth, but out there flew a trope;"
And when he happen'd to break off
I' th' middle of his speech, or cough,
H' had hard words ready, to shew why,
And tell what rules he did it by:
Else, when with greatest art he spoke,
You'd think he talk'd like other folk.
For all a rhetorician's rules
Teach nothing but to name his tools.
But, when he pleas'd to shew't, his speech In loftiness of sound was rich;
A Babylonish dialect,
Which learned pedants much affect;
It was a party-colour'd dress
Of patch'd and piebald languages:
'Twas English cut on Greek and Latin,
Like fustian 10 heretofore on satin.
It had an odd promiscuous tone,
As if h' had talk'd three parts in one;
A figure of rhetoric, i. e. he could not speak without using ornate language.
10 Sleeves or hose made of coarse fustian were often cut into holes in order to show the satin underneath.
Such as do build their faith upon The holy text of Pike and Gun. Decide all controversies by Infallible artillery;
When he harangu'd, but known his phrase,
In Mathematics he was greater
Than Tycho Brahe, or Erra Pater;15
For he, by geometric scale,
Could take the size of pots of ale;
Resolve by sines and tangents straight,
If bread or butter wanted weight;
And wisely tell what hour o' th' day
The clock does strike, by Algebra.
Beside, he was a shrewd Philosopher,
And had read ev'ry text and gloss over:
Whate'er the crabbed'st author hath,
He understood b' implicit faith:
Whatever sceptic could enquire for,
For ev'ry why, he had a wherefore;
Knew more than forty of them do,
As far as words and terms could go.
All which he understood by rote,
And, as occasion serv'd, would quote:
No matter whether right or wrong;
They might be either said or sung.
His notions fitted things so well,
That which was which he could not tell;
But oftentimes mistook the one
And prove their doctrine Orthodox
By apostolic Blows and Knocks;
Call fire, and sword, and desolation,
A godly thorough reformation,
Which always must be carried on,
And still be doing, never done:
As if religion were intended
For nothing else but to be mended.
A sect whose chief devotion lies
In odd perverse antipathies:
In falling out with that or this,
And finding somewhat still amiss:
More peevish, cross, and splenetic,
Than dog distract, or monkey sick.
That with more care keep holy-day
The wrong, than others the right way:
Compound for sins they are inclined to,
By damning those they have no
Still so perverse and opposite,
As if they worshipp'd God for spite.
The self-same thing they will abhor
One way, and long another for.
Free-will they one way disavow,
Another, nothing else allow.
All piety consists therein
In them, in other men all sin.
Like words congeal'd in Northern air.
Rather than fail, they will defy
He knew what's what, and that's as high
That which they love most tenderly;
As metaphysic wit can fly.
Quarrel with minc'd-pies, and disparage
In school-divinity as able
As he that hight Irrefragable;18
A second Thomas, 19 or at once
To name them all, another Duns.20
11 According to Hesiod, Cerberus had fifty heads.
12 Referring to the testing of precious metals by the use of the touchstone.
14 A famous Danish astronomer, 1546-1601.
15 An old astrologer, whose name is here given to William Lilly, a famous astrologer of the time.
16 A philosophical term for things that exist, as opposed
to those things that are only potential.
17 The real essences of things.
18 Alexander of Hales, d. 1245, was called doctor irrefragable.
19 Thomas Aquinas, d. 1274, a famous scholar.
20 The followers of Duns Scotus (d. 1308), by their opposition to the New Learning, came to be looked upon as stupid obstructionists: hence our word dunce Dunsman.
Their best and dearest friend, plum-porridge;
Fat pig and goose itself oppose,
And blaspheme custard thro' the nose.
Th' apostles of this fierce religion,
Like Mahomet's, were ass and widgeon.24
21 Nominal vs. real. The reference is to two philosophical doctrines advocated by the Nominalists and the Realists respectively.
22 A member or Doctor of the College of the Sorbonne in Paris, founded by Robert de Sorbon in 1257.
23 The old belief that insanity was due to the influence of the moon is reflected in our words lunatic, lunacy, from Latin luna, moon.
24 The ass, according to the Koran, was the beast which Gabriel brought to carry Mahomet to the presence of God. The pigeon (wigeon) Mahomet taught to eat out of his ear, that it might be thought to be his means of communication with God.
Through all the realms of Nonsense, absolute.
This aged prince, now flourishing in peace,
And blest with issue of a large increase,
Worn out with business, did at length debate
To settle the succession of the state;
And, pondering which of all his sons was fit
To reign, and wage immortal war with wit,
Cried, "Tis resolved! for Nature pleads, that he
Should only rule, who most resembles me.
Shadwell alone my perfect image bears,
Mature in dulness from his tender years;
Shadwell alone, of all my sons, is he,
Who stands confirmed in full stupidity.
The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,
But Shadwell never deviates into sense;
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval;
But Shadwell's genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Besides, his goodly fabric fills the eye,
And seems designed for thoughtless majesty;
Thoughtless as monarch oaks, that shade the
plain,
And, spread in solemn state, supinely reign.
Heywood and Shirley were but types of thee,
Thou last great prophet of tautology!
Even I, a dunce of more renown than they,
Was sent before but to prepare thy way;
And, coarsely clad in Norwich drugget,2 came
To teach the nations in thy greater name.
25 Advowson meant originally the obligation to protect a religious office or institution; hence the passage would seem to mean that hypocrisy and nonsense had come to defend and excuse his conscience.
1 Mac-Flecknoe is a satire directed against Thomas Shadwell," T. S.," (1640-1692), a minor poet and dramatist of the Restoration. Dryden's poem, The Medal, drew from Shadwell a venomous counter attack, The Medal of John Bayes (i. e. Dryden). This Dryden answered in Mac-Flecknoe. Shadwell is represented in the poem as the son or poetic successor of Richard Flecknoe, an Irish poet, wit, and playwright, and the poem opens with the abdication of Flecknoe as absolute monarch of the kingdom of Nonsense, in favor of Shadwell!
"This stuff appears to have been sacred to the poorer votaries of Parnassus; and it is somewhat odd that it seems to have been the dress of our poet himself in the entire stages of his fortune." Scott.
My warbling lute,-the lute I whilom strung, 35
When to King John of Portugal3 I sung,-
Was but the prelude to that glorious day,
When thou on silver Thames didst cut thy way,
With well-timed oars, before the royal barge,
Swelled with the pride of thy celestial charge; 40
And big with hymn, commander of an host,-
The like was ne'er in Epsom blankets tost.
Methinks I see the new Arion sail,
The lute still trembling underneath thy nail. At thy well-sharpened thumb, from shore to shore,
The trebles squeak for fear, the basses roar; .
About thy boat the little fishes throng,
As at the morning toast' that floats along.
Sometimes, as prince of thy harmonious band,
Thou wield'st thy papers in thy threshing
hand;
St. Andre's feet ne'er kept more equal time,
Not even the feet of thy own Psyche's rhyme:
Though they in number as in sense excel;
So just, so like tautology, they fell,
That, pale with envy, Singleton" forswore
The lute and sword, which he in triumph bore,
And vowed he ne'er would act Villerius more.'
Here stopt the good old sire and wept for
joy,
In silent raptures of the hopeful boy.
All arguments, but most his plays, persuade,
That for anointed dulness he was made.
And little Maximins11 the gods defy.
Great Fletcher never treads in buskins here,
Nor greater Jonson dares in socks appear;
But gentle Simkin12 just reception finds
Amidst this monument of vanished minds;
Pure clinches13 the suburban muse affords,
And Panton14 waging harmless war with words.
Here Flecknoe, as a place to fame well
known,
Ambitiously designed his Shadwell's throne. For ancient Decker prophesied long since,
An allusion to some work of Flecknoe's of which, it seems, nothing is now known.
Apparently the bread and toast thrown into the Thames from the boats in order to attract the fishes. $ A fashionable dancing master of the time. An opera singer and musician. He acted the part of Villerius, in Sir William Davenant's opera, The Siege of Rhodes.
The title given by the Romans to London, Londinium Augusta.
A round tower near the junction of Barbican and Aldersgate Streets.
10 A school of acting established in 1665 by the king. 11 Maximin was the hero of Dryden's Tyrannic Love. 12 A cobbler, in an Interlude of the day. 13 Puns.
No Persian carpets spread the imperial way,
But scatter limbs of mangled poets lay.
Much Heywood, Shirley, Ogleby 18 there lay, 102
But loads of Shadwell almost choked the way;
Bilked 19 stationers for yeomen stood prepared,
And Herringman20 was captain of the guard. 105
The hoary prince in majesty appeared,
High on a throne of his own labours reared.
At his right hand our young Ascanius sate,
Rome's other hope, and pillar of the state.
His brows thick fogs, instead of glories, grace,
And lambent dulness played around his face.111
As Hannibal did to the altars come,
Sworn by his sire, a mortal foe to Rome,
So Shadwell swore, nor should his vow be vain, That he till death true dulness would maintain;
And, in his father's right, and realm's defence, Ne'er to have peace with wit, nor truce with
His temples, last, with poppies were o'erspread,
That nodding seemed to consecrate his head.
Just at the point of time, if fame not lie,
On his left hand twelve reverend owls did fly;
So Romulus, 'tis sung, by Tiber's brook,
Presage of sway from twice six vultures took.
The admiring throng loud acclamations make,
And omens of his future empire take.
The sire then shook the honours of his head,
And from his brows damps of oblivion shed 135
Full on the filial dulness: long he stood,
Repelling from his breast the raging god;
15 The reference here is to The Miser and The Humorists, plays by Shadwell. Raymond is a character in The Humorists, while Bruce appears in another of Shadwell's plays.
16-17 Two sections of London. The sense is that they come from north and south.
18 John Ogleby, 1600-1676, a Scotch versifier.
20 A leading publisher of the day.
21-22 The opera of Psyche which was recorded, i. e.,
At length burst out in this prophetic mood:"Heavens bless my son! from Ireland let him
To far Barbadoes on the western main;
Of his dominion may no end be known,
And greater than his father's be his throne;
Beyond love's kingdom let him stretch his
pen!"
He paused, and all the people cried, “Amen.”
Then thus continued he: "My son, advance 145
Still in new impudence, new ignorance.
Success let others teach, learn thou from me
Pangs without birth, and fruitless industry.
Let Virtuosos in five years be writ,
Yet not one thought accuse thy toil of wit.
Let gentle George23 in triumph tread the stage,
Make Dormiant betray, and Loveit rage;
Let Cully, Cockwood, Fopling, charm the pit,
And in their folly show the writer's wit;
Yet still thy fools shall stand in thy defence, 155
And justify their author's want of sense.
Let them be all by thy own model made
Of dulness, and desire no foreign aid,
That they to future ages may be known,
Not copies drawn, but issue of thy own:
Nay, let thy men of wit too be the same,
All full of thee, and differing but in name,
But let no alien Sedley24 interpose,
To lard with wit thy hungry Epsom prose.
And when false flowers of rhetoric thou wouldst
cull,
165
Trust nature; do not labour to be dull,
But write thy best, and top; and, in each line,
Sir Formal's 25 oratory will be thine:
Sir Formal, though unsought, attends thy quill,
And does thy northern dedications 20 fill.
Nor let false friends seduce thy mind to fame,
By arrogating Jonson's hostile name;
Let father Flecknoe fire thy mind with praise,
And uncle Ogleby thy envy raise.
Thou art my blood, where Jonson has no part:
What share have we in nature, or in art?
Where did his wit on learning fix a brand,
And rail at arts he did not understand?
Where made he love in Prince Nicander's27
Then, seized with fear, yet still affecting fame,
Usurped a patriot's all-atoning name.
So easy still it proves in factious times,
With public zeal to cancel private crimes.
How safe is treason, and how sacred ill,
Where none can sin against the people's will,
Where crowds can wink, and no offence be
known,
Since in another's guilt they find their own? 185
Yet fame deserved no enemy can grudge;
The statesman we abhor, but praise the judge.
In Israel's courts ne'er sat on Abbethdin3
With more discerning eyes, or hands more
clean,
Unbribed, unsought, the wretched to redress;
Swift of despatch, and easy of access.
Oh! had he been content to serve the crown,
With virtue only proper to the gown;
Or had the rankness of the soil been freed
From cockle, that oppressed the noble seed; 195
David for him his tuneful harp had strung,
And heaven had wanted one immortal song.
But wild ambition loves to slide, not stand,
And fortune's ice prefers to virtue's land.
Achitophel, grown weary to possess
A lawful fame, and lazy happiness,
Disdained the golden fruit to gather free,
And lent the crowd his arm to shake the tree.
Pleased with the danger, when the waves went high,
He sought the storms; but for a calm unfit,
Would steer too nigh the sands, to boast his wit.
Great wits are sure to madness near allied,
And thin partitions do their bounds divide;
Else, why should he, with wealth and honour
blest,
Refuse his age the needful hours of rest?
Punish a body which he could not please;
Bankrupt of life, yet prodigal of ease?
And all to leave what with his toil he won,
To that unfeathered two-legged thing, a son;170
Got, while his soul did huddled notions try;
And born a shapeless lump, like anarchy.
In friendship false, implacable in hate;
Resolved to ruin, or to rule the state.
29.30 Two characters in Shadwell's Virtuoso.
1 The earliest of Dryden's satires. It was directed against the versatile, able, but unscrupulous politician, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Lord Shaftsbury, who appears under the name of Achitophel.
Then cold, and hot, and moist, and dry,
In order to their stations leap,
And Music's power obey.
From harmony, from heavenly harmony,
This universal frame began;
From harmony to harmony
Through all the compass of the notes it ran,
The diapason closing full in man.
What passion cannot music raise and quell? When Jubal struck the chorded shell,
His listening brethren stood around,
2A "Triple Alliance" between Holland, Sweden, and England in 1668. It was broken by an infamous secret treaty with France. Shaftsbury was one of its signers. 3 A Hebrew word meaning "father of the Nation;" i. e.. the judges. As Lord Chancellor, Shaftsbury had a well deserved reputation for uprightness and ability.
St. Cecilia, virgin martyr of the third century, became patron saint of music, and was supposed to have invented the organ.
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