The Lives and Characters of the English Dramatick Poets/William Alexander, Earl of Sterline
THE
Lives and Characters
OF THE
English Dramatick Poets:
WITH AN
ACCOUNT
OF ALL THE
PLAYS,
Printed to the Year, 1698.
A
William Alexander, Earl of Sterline.
The Title of this Nobleman makes it evident that he derives his Birth from Scotland, as the Dedication of his Works affords us a Proof that he liv'd in the Time of King James the First, for there he has this Stanza:
Of this dived Isle the Nurselings brave
Earst from intestine Wars cou'd not desist,
Yet did in Foreign Fields their Names engrave,
Whilst whom one spoil'd, the other wou'd assist.
These now have One; whilst such a Head they have,
What World of Words were able to resist?
Thus has Thy Worth (Great JAMES) conjoin'd them now,
Whom Battels oft did break, but never bow.
That he was in Favour with King James, is evident from Sir Robert Ayton's Verses before his Tragedies. As for any Particulars of his Family and Private Affairs I can give you no Account, but that it may be reasonably drawn from his Quality, Nation, and Favour at that time, that he was not unhappy in any of them, at least that depended on Fortune.
This Nobleman has by his Writings shew'd Posterity, that he had a just Right to his King's Favour, as any one that reads his Recreations of the Muses will allow. Mr. Langbain tells us of former Editions, but the best is in Folio, London, Printed for Tho. Harper, 1637. and dedicated to King James, not King Charles the First, as Mr. Langbain mistakes. In this Volume are Four Plays, which he calls, Monarchick Tragedies; The Alexandrean Tragedy, Crœsus, Darius, and Julius Cæsar. Nor can I agree with Mr. Langbain, that he has proposed the Ancients for his Model, whom he has follow'd in nothing but the Chorus: For as for the unities of Action, Time, and Place, always observed by them, he seems to know nothing of them. He seems to mistake the very Essence of the Drama, which consists in Action, most of his being Narration; and may rather be term'd Historical Dialogues, than Dramatick Pieces. There is scarce one Action perform'd in View of the Audience; but several Persons come in, and tell of Adventures perform'd by others or themselves, and which often have no more to do with the Business of the Play, than the Persons that speak, as in the First Scene of the Fifth Act of the Alexandrean Tragedy, Aristotle and Phoceon, who have no hand in the various Revolutions of that Play, spend a long Scene on the Uncertainty of Humane Grandeur, only to tell a few Lines of Business done by some of Alexander's Captains. This Play is so far from being after the Model of the Ancients, the Action so far from being one, that 'tis multiplied enough for at least Ten Plays, it containing the various Revolutions, and Murders of the Commanders of the Macedonean Army, after the Death of Alexander; and here, as in the rest, he runs too far back to bring things ab ovo, that have no Relation to the Action, as the Scene between Harpagus and Cyrus, and Cræsus and Sandanis, and many more will evince. If he has not followed the Model of the Ancients, he has yet borrowed very freely their Thoughts, translating whole Speeches from Seneca, Virgil, and others, as the First Act of Julius Cæsar from Juno's Speech in the First of the Æneids; and many of his Sentences, as well as the Defect of his Senteniousness, he owes to Seneca. The Two First Acts generally are wholly foreign to the Business of the Play, as indeed the greatest part of the other Acts are too. This at least may be said of my Lord, that he is a very good Historian, and from his Plays the Reader may gather a great deal of the Affairs of Greece, and Rome. Juno in the first Act of Julius Cæsar, gives us the History of all the Invasions of the Roman Empire, by the barbarous Nations, whether Gauls or the Cimbri, &c. to the time of Julius Cæsar, and finding none of them effectual enough to ruin the Power of the Roman State, which deriving it self originally from the Trojan Race, she could not but hate, therefore she now resolves to destroy it by Civil Wars, and to raise her Brothers Servants, the Furies, always obsequious to mischievous Commands,
:Whilst Furies furious by my Fury made.
Says, she shall at last do the Work; with which, after a Speech of Two or Three Hundred Lines she ends the Act. Indeed my Lord seems often to have a peculiar Fancy to punning, and that in all his chief Characters; as Cæsar says in the Second Act,
Great Pompey's Pomp is past
and
To seem uncivil in these Civil Wars.
But not to wrong my Lord in the Judgment of the Readers, by these ridiculous Quotations; they are to consider, First, that this was the Vice of the Age, not the Poet; he having in that, as well as some other things, imitated the Vices of our admirable Shakespear, and next that these punning Fits come not very often upon him. To shew that he writes in another Strain sometimes, I must give you Three or Four Lines, (my Brevity denying more large Quotations) which will give you a Taste of his better Parts.
Love is a joy, which upon Pain depends;
A Drop of sweet drown'd in a Sea of Sowers:
What Folly doth begin, that Fury ends;
They Hate for Ever, who have Lov'd for Hours.
'Tis the Reflection of Adrastus in Cræsus, the most moving Play of the Four; but to return to Cæsar. In the Second Act, Cæsar thinks it a part of his Grandeur to boast his Deeds to Anthony (who knew 'em well enough before) and betwixt 'em both, we have an Account of his Commentaries, and almost a Diary of his Actions. I can't omit one thing in this Play, in the Fifth Act he brings Brutus, Cassius, Cicero, Anthony, &c. together after the Death of Cæsar, almost in the same Circumstances as Shakespear had done in his Play of this Name. But Shakespear's Anthony and Brutus ravish you, while my Lord's Brutus, Cicero, and Anthony would make you sleep, so much our English Poet excels. This must be said for my Lord's Julius Cæsar, that it is much the most regular of all his Plays, at least in the Unity of Action, which is only Cæsar's Death, tho' the whole last Act is almost redundant, for when Cæsar is once dead, we have no occasion to hear of the Consequence of it, either in the Grief of Calpurnia, or the Disagreements of the Noblemen and Commons; but this may be objected likewise to Shakespear, who gives us a History, not a Play.
But 'tis time now to give over our Reflections on this Poet, and give the Reader a more particular account of their Plots, in their Alphabetical Order.
The Alexandrean Tragedy, For the Plot you may consult Quintus Curtius, and the 13th Book of Justin, Diodorus Sciculus, l. 18. Orosius, l. 3. c. 21. Josephus l. 13. c. 1. Appian de Bellis Syriacis. Saliani Annales Ecclesiastici A. M. 3730. N. 30. &c. Torniel. A. M. 3730. N. 5. Raleigh's Hist. l. 4. c. 3. Heylin's Hist. of Greece, Howel, &c.
Crœsus, Taken from Herodot. Clio. Justin., l. 1. c. 7. Plutarch's Life of Solon. Salian. Torniel. A. M. 3510. Xenophon's Cyropaideia.
Darius, This, as Mr. Langbain assures us, was the First Fruit of his Lordship's Dramatick Muse, Publish'd at Edinburgh, 1603. when he was yet Lord Menstrie: The Language and design very much improv'd in this last Folio Edition. As to the Plot, consult Quintus Curtius, lib. 3, 4, & 5. Justin., l. 11. c. 5. &c. Diodorus, l. 17. Arrian, de Expeditione Alexandri, l. 2. Plutarch's Life of Alexander, Salian, A. M. 2719, &c.
Julius Cæsar, The Story of this Play will be exactly found in the Roman Histories, Plutarch and Suetonius in the Life of Cæsar, Appian de Bellis Civilibus, lib. 2. Florus, l. 4. c. 2. Salian, Torniel, &c.
He has writ besides these Plays, Doomsday. A Parænæsis to Prince Henry, on whose Death he dedicated it to Prince Charles, afterwards King Charles I. A Fragment of an intended Heroick Poem of Jonathan, of which he has left but one Book.