653 



DRYDEN, JOHN. 



DU CANGE, CHARLES DUFRESNE. 



651 



During the four years from 1682 to 1685 Dryden produced nothing 

 worth notice, with the exception of a translation of Maimbourg's 

 ' History of the League,' undertaken, ns Dr. Johnson eays, to promote 

 popery. We should be at a loss to account for this apparent want of 

 purpose, but an event which occurred in the year last mentioned clears 

 up the difficulty. Soon after the death of Charles II. Dryden turned 

 Roman Catholic not without due consideration as the 'Religio 

 Laid,' written nearly four years before, contains sufficient evidence of 

 his mental struggles at that period, and not, it is to be hoped, other- 

 wise than conscientiously, as indeed his subsequent conduct appears 

 to show. Johnson indeed has hinted, and Macanlay pretty broadly 

 asserted, that the renunciation of Protestantism was made by the 

 " illustrious renegade, ' as Macaulay designates him, with a view to the 

 personal and pecuniary advantages to be derived from it. Mr. Bell, the 

 most recent biographer of Dryden, has shown however that the addi- 

 tional pension oflOOA, with which, as Maeanlay says, he was "gratified," 

 by James II. immediately "he declared himself a papist," was not a 

 new grant, but the resumption of an annuity granted by his predecessor 

 about a year before his death, but which had remained unpaid from 

 the decease of Charles in fact, that it was a formal continuation of 

 a grant " which had lapsed in common with all other personal gratui- 

 ties by the death of the late king." But Mr. Bell clearly goes too far 

 when he adds that this fact contributes " materially to remove the 

 suspicion hitherto attached to this pension." It shows that Macaulay, 

 who teems to entertain for the memory of Dryden a kind of personal 

 ill-feeling, made an assertion somewhat broader and more positive 

 than was quite justifiable ; but of course the renewal of a lapsed 

 annuity may be ae much the ' gratification ' for a service performed, 

 or a seasonable apostacy, as the granting of a new pension. Still, as 

 we have said already, the whole tenor of Dryden's subsequent life 

 speaks for his conscientiousness on this occasiou. Moreover, Dryden 

 was a poet, and, as his 'Religio Laici' showed, a high churchman, 

 and any one who observed the course of reasoning which, on a well- 

 known occasion a few years back, led many adherents of the high 

 church portion of the establishment, whose views were to a great 

 extent a matter of sentiment and feeling, to pass over to the Church 

 of Rome (as Dryden did) "with the crowd," will shrink from branding 

 him as a renegade and a barterer of his faith for a paltry pension, so 

 long as no direct evidence is brought to prove him one. Dryden, we 

 may add, educated his sons as Roman Catholics, and himself remained 

 in strict connection with that church to his death : it ought to be 

 noticed further, that when William III. had become firmly established 

 on the throne, and the court seemed disposed to look kindly on the 

 veteran poet, Dryden, as late as 1699 (the year before his death), in 

 announcing his willingness to promise his "acquiescence under the 

 present government, and forbearing satire on it," adds, " but I can 

 neither take the oaths nor forsake my religion." His conversion to 

 the papacy was announced to the world in 1687 by his ' Hind and 

 Panther,' " an allegory," as Johnson happily expressed it, " intended 

 to comprise and to describe the controversy between the Romanists 

 and the Protestants." It did not, we know, decide nor materially 

 influence the controversy ; but it is a brilliant specimen of the poet's 

 aluio-t unrivalled power of reasoning hi verse. Whatever may be 

 thought of the arguments, and absurd as is the allegory, the ' Hind 

 ami Panther" is certainly of its kind one of the fineat pieces in the 

 entire range of English poetry. 



In 1690 Drydeu returned to his old employment, and produced four 

 plays between that year and 1 694. This was no doubt owing to poverty, 

 as the revolution deprived him of the laureateship, which he had ob- 

 tained on the death of Davenant in 1668, and the expenses of his 

 family were now increasing. For the next three years he was busied 

 in bis translation of the ' .Knekl,' and about the same time with it 

 appeared his celebrated ode on St. Cecilia's day, which is in its way 

 perhaps one of the finest pieces of exact lyrical poetry which our 

 language possesses. 



In the middle of 1698 he undertook his adaptations of Chaucer, and 

 about a year and a half afterwards, completed bis Fables. His last 

 work a masque, with prologue and epilogue was written about 

 three weeks before his death, which happened, after a short illness 

 arising from neglected inflammation of the foot, on the 1st of May 

 1700. He was buried in Westminster Abbey, where a monument was 

 erected to his memory by John duke of Buckingham. A portrait of 

 him hangs in the hall of Trinity College, Cambridge. 



It is extremely difficult to form an opinion on the character of a 

 man of whose life we possess such scanty notice, and who, for the 

 greater part of his literary career, wrote entirely to please others. 

 Congreve bail left a description of him, and there seems no reason to 

 distrust it, which ensures for him the praise of modesty, self-respect, 

 true-heartedne*a, and a forgiving spirit. His manners are said to have 

 been easy without forwardness; but it has been said that his powers 

 of conversation were rather limited. It does not seem necessary that 

 we should attribute bU extreme indelicacy as a dramatic writer to 

 corresponding coarseness or impurity as a man. The clo.-e connection 

 which existed between the Cavaliers and the court of France had 

 tended much to vitiate the taste of those who were the received judges 

 of literary merit. To the Italian sources, whence Spenser and Milton 

 drew, was preferred the French school ; and the consequences are as 

 apparent in the grossness of Dryden's comedies as in the stilts and 



extravagance of his heroic drama. Dryden appears to have been very 

 late in discovering that style for which he was most fitted, namely, 

 satire, iu which he has never been surpassed, and rarely equalled. 

 His translations of Virgil and Juvenal deserve very high praise, par- 

 ticularly when they are compared with the style of translation usual 

 in his time. In his version of Chaucer he has not been so successful. 

 That substitution of general for particular images which characterises 

 the performance is always a step away from poetry. Perhaps the 

 moat striking instance of the superiority of Chaucer is that description 

 of the Temple of Mars which occurs towards the close of the second 

 book of 'Palamon and Arcite' in Dryden, and a little past the middle 

 of Chaucer's 'Knighte's Tale.' This passage is also curious as an 

 instance of Dryden's hatred of the clergy ; he introduced two lines to 

 convert Chaucer's "smiler with the knife under the cloak" into a 

 priest. In his diction Dryden is thoroughly English, free from affec- 

 tation, and always perspicuous. His versification is that of a master : 

 no one else has used the heroic measure with such ease and vigour. 



Dryden's prose works consist mostly of dedications, the extravagant 

 flattery of which is only palliated by custom, and of prefaces, which 

 are in fact rather essays, and many of them very remarkable ones. 

 His ' Essay on Dramatic .Poesy ' has been already noticed ; that on 

 Painting is a good example alike of the excellences and defects of 

 his prose of its colloquial, ease and rhythm, of its shallowness, loose 

 reasoning, its frequent egotism, and at times somewhat excessive fami- 

 liarity. He also wrote Lives of Polybius, Lucian, and Plutarch (' Biog. 

 Brit.'), and assisted in translating the last-named author : perhaps, 

 however, only from the French, 



(Langbaine, Dramatic Pvets; Johnson, Malone, Scott, and Bell, 

 Live* of Drydm ; Quarterly Review for 1826; Edinburgh Rev lew, 1803 ; 

 Life of Sir W. Scott, vol. ii.) 



DUAREN, DOUAREN, or DUARE'NUS FRANgOIS, a French 

 lawyer, was born about 1509. His youth was chiefly devoted to litera- 

 ture ; and he is said to have acquired the rudiments of his professional 

 education from conversation with M. Bud<5, Maltre des Requfites at 

 Paria, to whose children he was employed as tutor. He afterwards 

 taught law at Bourges, where in his old age, as defender of the estab- 

 lished system of jurisprudential instruction, he carried on a long con- 

 troversy with Cujacius, then in his youth. This dispute, of a kind so 

 frequently exhibited when a rising genius invades old settled prin- 

 ciples, was conducted with so much animation between the factions, 

 headed by these two leaders, that it was compared to a civil war. 

 Cujacius acknowledged that to the exertions he had to make in this 

 controversy he owed much of his subsequent legal knowledge and 

 critical discrimination. 



Duaren died at Bourges in 1559. His works were published at 

 Leyden, in 1584, in two volumes folio, and there are subsequent 

 editions. Some of his minor works are published in the ' Tractatus 

 Tractatuum.' There is a Memoir of him in Taiaand's 'Les Vies des 

 plus ce'lebres Jurisconsultes.' 



DUBOS, JEAN-BAPTISTE, was born at Beauvais in December 

 1670. He began to study theology, but soon abandoned it for politics. 

 He was employed by M. Do Torcy, minister of foreign affairs, ou several 

 secret uegociations with the governments of England, Holland, Ger- 

 many, and Italy. His services were rewarded by a pension and by 

 several benefices. Having retired from his political avocations, he 

 devoted himself entirely to literature. In 1720 he was admitted into 

 the Academy, of which two years later he became secretary fcr life. 

 Ho died at Paris in 1742, after a long illness. 



The work by which he is chiefly known, ' Reflexions Critiques sur 

 la Poe'aie et sur la Peinture,' is in its kiud, and for its time, excellent. 

 He first inquires into the cause of the fine arts, and discovers it in the 

 love of excitement which is naturally implanted iu the human breast : 

 man, he thinks, would rather be unpleasantly excited than uot excited 

 at aU. He then proceeds to the cause of the pleasure felt in witnessing 

 tragical representations. He observes that, from the before-uamed 

 love of excitement, people are fond of looking at executions, &c., and 

 concludes that a method should be devised by which we may have the 

 excitement without the subsequent painful reflection that a fellow- 

 creature has been suffering intensely. This end is accomplished by 

 tragedy or a tragical picture, where the suffering, being feigned, leaves 

 behind no feeling of regret. Keeping this principle in view, he goes 

 on to inquire what are the proper subjects for poetry and painting, 

 using as the standard of his judgment the greater or less degree of 

 excitement occasioned by such and such subjects. His discussions 

 whether the hero of a tragedy should be a person of ancient or 

 modern history, on the appropriate use of allegories, and similar 

 topics, are managed in the pleaaantest style possible, and are besides, 

 if we make due allowance for the French dramatic prejudices, very 

 instructive, as well for the critical views which they contain as for the 

 historical anefidotes with which they are illustrated. Dubos is also 

 known as an historian by his ' Histoire de la Ligue de Caiubrai,' aud 

 ' De 1'Establissement de la Monarchic Franyaise dans les Gaules,' works 

 which were admired by some of his contemporaries and slighted by 

 others. 



DU CANGE, CHARLES DUFRESNE, SEIGNEUR, was born t 

 Amiens, December 18, 1610, in Jesuits' College of which phu o ho 

 was educated. He studied the law, but after u time gave himself up 

 entirely to history and philosophy. His first work was ' Hiatoiro do 



