Dry den's Relation to Germany 65 



Ayres,^ Young,^ Warton/ and Brown,^ besides odes on the same 

 theme by Addison, Congreve, and Pope, while Jeremiah Clark and 

 Handel set it to music. 



A. Musical Compositions a Potent Factor in Perpetuating Alex- 

 ander's Feast 



These musical compositions for Alexander's Feast aided materi- 

 ally in perpetuating its renown as a lyric.® 



Clark's composition was made for its first presentation, and was 

 repeated at least three times in London shortly after the first reg- 

 ular performance. As a musical performance, however, Alex- 

 ander's Feast seems to have been attended with only moderate 

 success until Handel's composition revived it in 1736, when it was 



Dryden. In his Essay on Criticism he lays down the essentials of genuine 

 poetry, insisting that poetry must have more than cadence and rhyme, that 

 the words must convey the thought and action conforming with the 

 theme. Alexander's Feast he cites as such a poem (lines 374-383). 



s Ayers in his work on Pope asserts that Pope was urged by his friends 

 to write a Cecelia ode with the hope that it would bring him great renown 

 as it had Dryden, but that it was evident that he was unable to cope with 

 his predecessor. See Gottsched's review of Ayres' Memoirs of the Life 

 and Writings of Alexander Pope (London, 1745) in Neuem BUchersaal 

 der schonen Wissenschaften und freyen Kiinste, I, p. 142, Leipzig, 1745. 



6 Young says in his Essay on Lyrical Poetry, The Works of the Author 

 of the Night's Thoughts, vol. 6, p. 164, London, 1778, that in his opinion 

 Dryden's ode is equal to any work of similar nature, and praises especially 

 the varying meter corresponding with the mood depicted. 



■^ Warton is most profuse in his praise of the ode, " which places the 

 British lyric poet above that of any other nation." See Essay on th'^ 

 Writings and Genius of Pope, H, p. 20. 



^ Brown introduces it several times in his treatise on poetry and music, 

 commending its popularity due to its simplicity, and its power over our 

 emotions. See Dr. Brown's Betrachtungen iiber Poesie und Musik . . . 

 Ubersetst von Joachim Eschenhurg mit Anmerkungen, pp. 367 and 393, 

 Leipzig, 1769. 



^ Both Malone and Scott have given a history of the patron saint of 

 music, and of the odes written and performed in commemoration of Saint 

 Cecelia's Day, which was celebrated in London by the Musical Society and 

 throughout all Europe by music lovers. Dryden furnished the odes for 

 two of these commemorations (1687 and 1697). The first was entitled: A 

 Song for Saint Cecelia's Day; the second, Alexander's Feast. 



353 



