12 Prosscr Hall Fryc 



is that Elizabethanism was on the lees. Its genius had evapo- 

 rated, leaving its extravagance exposed and impudent. And it 

 was to the example of French literature and the instruction of 

 French criticism that the new age turned for confirmation and 

 support in a reaction whose direction had been fatally determined 

 in that particular sense by internal conditions. 



At the same time it must not be forgotten that they borrowed 

 on principle. Only in this way can the extent and bare-facedness 

 of their pilferings be understood or accounted for. It was virtu- 

 ous to imitate, if not an impeccable antiquity, then those who had 

 appropriated such an antiquity. And in accordance with the same 

 logic by which they had acquired their ideas, they acquired their 

 materials also. What they did not observe was that in doing so 

 they were prolonging, curiously enough, the Elizabethan deca- 

 dence. It is Fletcher whose name is always in their mouths and 

 in whose footsteps they follow until they finally discover Cor- 

 neille and Bossu. It may be that their invention was feeble ; it 

 was bound to seem so at all events. Even Dryden appears at his 

 best in set exercises, in translation, or in other instances where 

 his theme is given him. "In general," he declares, "the employ- 

 ment of a poet is like that of a curious gunsmith, or watchmaker ; 

 the iron or silver is not his own ; but they are the least part of 

 that which gives the value : the price lies wholly in the work- 

 manship."^ And he boldly shoulders the consequences of the 

 theory. His best drama is probably All for Love, which is made 

 over from Shakespeare's Antony and Cleopatra. With D'Av- 

 enant's assistance he applied the same process to the Tempest; 

 and with Lee's, to the Oedipus, though with less success in both 

 cases. By himself he "accommodated" Troilus and Cressida, 

 for the sake of removing "that heap of rubbish under which many 

 excellent thoughts lay wholly buried" ;- and turned Moliere's 

 I'Etourdi into Sir Martin Mar-all. But his most extraordinary 

 feat was his dramatization of Milton's Paradise Lost in heroic 

 couplets under the title of The State of Innocence and the Fall of 



'Dryden. Preface to an E.i'ctiing,'s I.oi'c. 

 'Dr.yden. Preface to Troilus and Cressida. 



12 



