1685 is variously related. Johnson was informed that, being on the point of starvation, he was choked with a piece of bread given him out of charity in an ordinary. Dennis, who was his contemporary, relates that he pursued to Dover an enemy who had traduced the memory of his friend Shadwell, and on his return died in a spunging-house of a chill which he had contracted. Otway's power lay, like that of Euripides, in the pathos with which he conceived situations closely resembling those of real life. He judiciously followed Shakespeare in grounding his two best dramas on existing tales or histories, and he departed from the "heroic" principle in taking his chief characters from the middle rank of society. In The Orphan, for example, the action is merely a dramatic rendering of a story he had found in a collection of tales called English Adventures by a Person of Honour. Monimia, an orphan, left under the protection of an old retired courtier, is loved by the two sons of the latter, Castalio and Polydore, and is herself in love with the elder, to whom she is in time secretly married. The brothers are devoted to each other, though love for Monimia is the strongest feeling in their breasts, and it is agreed between them that each shall pursue his court to her in his own way. Castalio, who has concealed from his brother his intention of marrying Monimia, after the marriage makes an appointment with his wife, that, at a given signal, he shall be admitted to her chamber at night; but their conversation being overheard by Polydore, the latter, in the belief that his brother, like himself, is animated by illegiti mate desires, contrives to obtain admission in Castalio's stead. In Venice Preserved the whole interest of the plot turns on the love of Jaffier for Belvidera, whom he has married without her father's consent. Being reduced to extremes of poverty, Jaffier, at the instigation of his friend Pierre, joins in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of Venice and assassinate the senators. He communicates the plot to his wife; and partly at her entreaty on behalf of her father, who is among the intended victims, partly to revenge himself on one of the conspirators, who has attempted the seduction of Belvidera, discloses it to the Senate. Here, it will be readily seen, are materials for strong dramatic situations, and these were skilfully developed by Otway in the manner best suited to his own powers. Dryden, who for some time disliked Otway as a friend of Shadwell, says of him in the preface to one of his own late works : I will not defend everything in his Venice Preserved, but I must bear this testimony to his memory, that the passions are truly touched in it, though perhaps there is something to be desired both in the grounds of them, and in the height and elegance of expression; but nature is there, which is the greatest beauty.1 The oblique censure on the style of this poet is repeated by Pope, who says that Otway failed to polish or refine.2 It simply implies, however, that Otway did not attempt to elevate his style in Dryden's "heroic" manner, but kept a level adapted to the nature of his subject. Nothing can be more truly expressive of the situation in The Orphan than the unaffected simplicity of the language, and Mrs. Barry declared that she could never utter without tears the "Oh, Castalio!" of Monimia, when she learns the deceit that Polydore has practised upon her. The care which Otway bestowed on those flatter portions of the play, which needed to be raised by description, may be judged by the following vivid picture of an old witch gathering sticks: CHAMONT. I spied a wrinkled hag with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and mumbling to herself; Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red ; The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging, So there was nothing of a piece about her : 1 Preface to Fresnoy's Art of Painting. 2 Epistle to Augustus, 278. 1685 is variously related. Johnson was informed that, being on the point of starvation, he was choked with a piece of bread given him out of charity in an ordinary. Dennis, who was his contemporary, relates that he pursued to Dover an enemy who had traduced the memory of his friend Shadwell, and on his return died in a spunging-house of a chill which he had contracted. Otway's power lay, like that of Euripides, in the pathos with which he conceived situations closely resembling those of real life. He judiciously followed Shakespeare in grounding his two best dramas on existing tales or histories, and he departed from the "heroic" principle in taking his chief characters from the middle rank of society. In The Orphan, for example, the action is merely a dramatic rendering of a story he had found in a collection of tales called English Adventures by a Person of Honour. Monimia, an orphan, left under the protection of an old retired courtier, is loved by the two sons of the latter, Castalio and Polydore, and is herself in love with the elder, to whom she is in time secretly married. The brothers are devoted to each other, though love for Monimia is the strongest feeling in their breasts, and it is agreed between them that each shall pursue his court to her in his own way. Castalio, who has concealed from his brother his intention of marrying Monimia, after the marriage makes an appointment with his wife, that, at a given signal, he shall be admitted to her chamber at night; but their conversation being overheard by Polydore, the latter, in the belief that his brother, like himself, is animated by illegitimate desires, contrives to obtain admission in Castalio's stead. In Venice Preserved the whole interest of the plot turns on the love of Jaffier for Belvidera, whom he has married without her father's consent. Being reduced to extremes of poverty, Jaffier, at the instigation of his friend Pierre, joins in a conspiracy to overthrow the government of Venice and assassinate the senators. He communicates the plot to his wife; and partly at her entreaty on behalf of her father, who is among the intended victims, partly to revenge himself on one of the as to give an ideal representation of real life and nature: he concentrates all his powers on the pathos of particular scenes and characters. In The Orphan, for example, the subject-matter is too slight for treatment on the heroic scale it might easily have been comprised within two long or three short acts. The tragic interest of the play is centred exclusively in the misfortunes of the innocent Monimia: no sympathy can possibly be bestowed on those of the cowardly and dissimulating Castalio, or of the selfish, cruel, and treacherous Polydore. Again, the conspiracy represented in Venice Preserved is historical, but no conspirators off the stage ever acted from such motives, or proceeded in such a manner, as Otway imagines. Pierre resolves to overthrow the whole structure of society to revenge himself for the loss of a mistress. Jaffier, at Pierre's instigation, joins him in order to save his beloved Belvidera from want and poverty. The conspirators enrol Jaffier, a complete stranger, in their number upon the mere recommendation of Pierre, and Jaffier, as a pledge of sincerity, hands over Belvidera to the keeping of the treacherous Renaud, of whom he knows absolutely nothing. Belvidera imitates the Portia of Shakespeare in claiming the confidence of her husband. Immediately she has obtained it, she insists that he shall betray the plot to the Senate; and Jaffier is so poor a creature that, after the slightest possible expostulation, he yields to her entreaties. In fact, except for the pathetic scenes between Jaffier and Belvidera, on the one side, and Pierre and Jaffier, on the other, the entire action of Venice Preserved is as improbable as a nightmare; the stage situations caused by the conflicts between love and conscience, love and friendship, public and private duties, are admirable; but of the nature of man in society, as it is represented to us in Julius Cæsar, all trace has disappeared. (iii) The flashes of genius in Lee, and the more steady flame of Otway's art, were not really significant of revived life in the romantic drama. Dryden indeed produced two more tragedies in blank verse which deserve attention, as illustrating at once the lines on which the heroic style was bound to advance and the cause of its rapid exhaustionone, The Duke of Guise, composed with the assistance of Lee; the other, Don Sebastian, written after the Revolution of 1688. The Duke of Guise exhibits the tendency of the political element in the heroic drama to harden into party satire. The heroic play naturally took its colour from the politics of the moment. During the monarchical reaction in the years that immediately followed the Restoration, it sufficed to exalt the principle of absolutism in a view of general reflection and allegory. Dryden created the ideal character of Almanzor; Crowne, in his Destruction of Jerusalem, glanced obliquely at the Puritan zealots in the persons of his imaginary Pharisees. But when the effects of the reaction died out, and the Country Party began to raise its head against the Court, the opposition of the factions naturally expressed itself in particular and even personal satire. The age called for pamphlets, poems, and plays to embody the actual political situation, or at least to give utterance to the prevailing political passion. Settle gratified a Protestant audience by representing on the stage the crimes and punishment of Pope Joan. Shadwell, groaning under his necessity, exclaimed in his prologue to The Lancashire Witches:— False wit is now the most pernicious weed, Like sprites which conjurors' circles do surround: yet in the play itself he satirised the Toryism of the clergy in the character of Smirke. On the opposite side, Dryden and Lee, under pretence of representing on the stage the history of France in the reign of Henry III., attacked the City Whigs, Shaftesbury, Monmouth, and the chief promoters of the Exclusion Bill. They avowed their motive in the prologue of the play :Our play's a parallel: the Holy League Begot our Covenant: Guisards got the Whig: |