When he wrote the questions and answers betwixt the man disguised as a devil and Hudibras—
What makes a church a den of thieves?—
A dean, a chapter, and white sleeves.
What makes all points of doctrine clear?—
About two hundred pounds a year.
And that which was proved true before,
Prove false again?—Two hundred more—
though the sting was intended for the puritans, the puritans laid hold on it, and quoted it against the church; and these and like blows rebounded, no doubt, on the poet's head.
Though time has removed the great interest of "Hudibras," and rendered many things in it obscure, yet its wit will always occasion it to be read and enjoyed, though, perhaps, no great poet was ever so destitute of those occasional touches of pathos and of natural beauty which other satirists have displayed, like breaks of sunlight in a storm, and of which so many of extraordinary fascination are interspersed in the otherwise objectionable pages of "Don Juan."
The most illustrious name of this period next to Milton is that of Dryden. He wrote almost every kind of poetry—satires, odes, plays, romantic stories, and translated Juvenal, Persius, the epistles of Ovid, and finally Virgil. It was unfortunate for the genius of Dryden that he was generally struggling with poverty, and by marrying an aristocratic and uncongenial wife, the sister of Sir Robert Howard, he was all the more compelled to exert his powers to live in the style which their circumstances demanded. Hence he produced an immense mass of writings, which added nothing to his fame. Foremost amongst these are his plays, which amount to nearly thirty in number, which were for the most part unsuccessful, and which abound with such gross indecencies, that, had they even high merit otherwise, would be found to be unperusable without cutting away their very vitals. He had the presumption to new-model Shakspeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream" and the "Tempest"—two of the most poetical compositions in existence—and blurred them with the foul leprosy of obscenity. He treated the "Paradise Lost" of Milton the same; nor did his necessities lead him only to these enormities; but there is little doubt they drove him to apostatise from his religion, and from his original political faith. His first poem of any note was a most eulogistic elegy on the death of Cromwell, in which, amongst many other such things, he said—
Heav'n in his portrait showed a workman's hand,
And drew it perfect, yet without a shade.
His very next poem, and that of some length, was "Astrea Redux; a Poem on the Happy Restoration and Return of his Sacred Majesty Charles II.," immediately followed by "A Panegyric on his Coronation," in which he heaps still more glowing praises on the young royal libertine, and flings dust as liberally at his late idol:—
While our cross stars denied us Charles's bed,
Whom our first flames and virgin love did wed,
For his long absence church and state did groan,
Madness the pulpit, faction seized the throne;
Experienced age in deep despair was lost,
To see the rebel thrive, the loyal crossed.
The accomplished sycophant received as his reward the office of poet laureate, with three hundred pounds a year; and he paid officiously more than his peppercorn of praise in the "Annus Mirabilis, or Year of Wonders, 1666," in which the sea fights with the Dutch and the fire of London were commemorated in elegiacal stanzas, and the most fulsome and almost impious adulation was poured in showers on both the king and his heir apparent, the duke of York—not forgetting an especial poetical address to the duchess on her husband's victories over the Hollanders. Who could recognise the reckless and libidinous Charles II. in lines like these, in which he is also complimented on forgiving his enemies whilst his throne stood deep in the blood of regicides and of persecuted covenanters:—
This I foretell from your auspicious care,
Who great in search of God and nature grow,
Who best your wise Creator's praise declare,
Since best to praise his works is best to know.
O truly royal! who behold the law
And rule of beings in your Maker's mind,
And thence, like limbecks, rich ideas draw
To fit the levellest use of human kind!
When this pious, God-studying, rich-idea drawing monarch died, the ready laureate wrote a most blasphemous ode on his death, taking care to pay due homage to the rising sun.
Our Atlas fell indeed, but Hercules was near.
His death was described to be like that of "the pious Hezekiah;" "God's image, God's anointed," lay amongst all sorts of miracles:—
Now miracles approached th' ethereal throne.
Such as his wondrous life had oft and lately shown.
The very fishes of the sea rose up amazed, and those who saw the prodigy exclaimed—
A king must fall, or kingdoms change their sway.
This pattern of all the virtues and all the wisdoms must die, but
That king who lived to God's own heart
Less serenely died than he.
But nature itself was illumined by his parting beams:—
Oh, truly good and truly great!
For glorious as he rose, benignly so he set.
The force of blasphemy could no further go, except to extend itself to the new monarch, James of blessed memory:—
His pious brother—sure the best
Who ever bore that name.
No doubt Dryden made himself sure that his laureate salary was safe, but he was mistaken. James, though "the best who ever bore the name," could forget benefits, and even flatteries; but he never forgot an ill turn, or anything that endangered his great design of restoring popery; and Dryden, to please the church and the late king, whom he did not know was at heart a papist, had written his "Religio Laici," in which he had pulled the catholic church all to pieces, and lauded superlatively the Anglican hierarchy. James first took away his butt of sack, and then his salary; whereupon Dryden directly turned catholic, and wrote "The Hind and Panther," to beslaver popery, kick down protestantism, and reconcile the public to James's invidious scheme of abolishing the test act for his own purposes. This succeeded, and Dryden continued to receive his pay and do his dirty work during James's reign. It was expected that he would wheel round again on William and Mary's success; but this was too much even for the impudence of "glorious John;" he lived and died catholic.
With all respect for the genius of Dryden, it is thus impossible for a truthful historian to take any but a melancholy view of his personal character, and of the mass of his writings. They are, in fact, mostly on subjects that do not fall
