what arrangement and disposition you please of his words, yet shall there eternally be poetry, and something which will be found incapable of being resolved into absolute prose; an incontestable characteristic of a truly poetical genius. I will say but one word more in general of his writings, which is, that what he has done in any one species, or distinct kind, would have been sufficient to have acquired him a great name. If he had written nothing but his prefaces, or nothing but his songs or his prologues, each of them would have entitled him to the preference and distinction of excelling in his kind. But I have forgot myself; for nothing can be more unnecessary than an attempt to say anything to your Grace in commendation of the writings of this great poet; since it is only to your knowledge, taste, and approbation of them, that the monument, which you are now about to raise to him, is owing. I will, therefore, my Lord, detain you no longer by this epistle; and only entreat you to believe, that it is addressed to your Grace from no other motive than a sincere regard to the memory of Mr. Dryden, and a very sensible pleasure which I take in applauding an action, by which you are so justly and so singularly entitled to a dedication of his labours, though many years after his death, and even though most of them were produced by him many years before you were I am, with the greatest respect, born. MY LORD, Your Grace's most obedient, And most humble servant, WILLIAM CONGREVE. [The Wild Gallant, a Comedy, as it was acted at the Theatre Royal by his Majesty's servants. Written by John Dryden, Esq. In the Savoy, Printed by Tho. Davenant for H. Herringman at the Blue Anchor in the Lower Walk of the New Exchange. 1669.-ED.] THE WILD GALLANT. THE Editor may be pardoned in bestowing remarks upon Dryden's plays, only in proportion to their intrinsic merit, and to the attention which each has excited, either at its first appearance, or when the public attention has been since directed towards them. In either point of view, little need be said on "The Wild Gallant." It was Dryden's first theatrical production, and its reception by no means augured his future pre-eminence in literature; nor was it more than tolerated, when afterwards revived under the sanction of his increasing fame. It was brought upon the stage in February 1662-3, according to the conjecture of Mr. Malone, who observes, that the following lines in the prologue, "It should have been but one continued song; Or, at the least, a dance of three hours long; " must refer to Davenant's opera, called "The Siege of Rhodes," acted in 1662; and that the expression, "in plays, he finds, you love mistakes," alludes to the blunders of Teague, an Irish footman, in Sir Robert Howard's play of the "Committee." "The Wild Gallant" was revived and published in 1669, with a new prologue and epilogue, and some other alterations, not of a nature, judging from the prologue, to improve the morality of the piece. That the play had but indifferent success in the action, the poet himself has informed us, with the qualifying addition, that it more than once was the divertisement of Charles II., by his own command. This honourable distinction it probably acquired by the influence of the Countess of Castlemaine, then the royal favourite, to whom Dryden addresses some verses on her encouraging this play.-See vol. xi. The plot is borrowed avowedly from the Spanish, and partakes of the unnatural incongruity, common to the dramatic pieces of that nation, as also of the bustle and intrigue, with which they are usually embroiled. Few modern audiences would endure the absurd grossness of the deceit practised on Lord Nonsuch in the fourth act; nor is the plot. of Lady Constance, to gain her lover, by marrying him in the disguise of a heathen divinity, more grotesque than unnatural. -Yet, in the under characters, some liveliness of dialogue is maintained; and the reader may be amused with particular scenes, though, as a whole, the early fate of the play was justly merited. These passages, in which the plot stands still, while the spectators are entertained with flippant dialogue and repartee, are ridiculed in the scene betwixt Prince Prettyman and Tom Thimble in the Rehearsal; the facetious Mr. Bibber being the original of the latter personage. The character of Trice, at least his whimsical humour of drinking, playing at dice by himself, and quarrelling as if engaged with a successful gamester, is imitated from the character of Carlo, in Jonson's " Every Man out of his Humour," who drinks with a supposed companion, quarrels about the pledge, and tosses about the cups and flasks in the imaginary brawl. We have heard similar frolics related of a bon-vivant of the last generation, inventor of a game called solitaire, who used to complain of the hardship of drinking by himself, because the toast came too often about. The whole piece seems to have been intended as a sacrifice to popular taste; and, perhaps, our poet only met a deserved fate, when he stooped to soothe the depraved appetite, which his talents enabled him to have corrected and purified. Something like this feeling may be inferred from the last lines of the second epilogue: "Would you but change, for serious plot and verse, Nor scorn a mode, because 'tis taught at home, In the prologue, the author indulges himself in a display of the terms of astrology, of which vain science he was a believer and a student. [The date of the production of The Wild Gallant was certainly February 1663, inasmuch as Pepys records that he saw it on the 23d of that month;--"it was ill acted, and the play so poor a thing as ever I saw in my life." Evidently this was the general opinion from the history of the piece as given in the preface and the second prologue. Scott's remarks on the play are not unjust, though the flashes of wit in the * This seems to allude to the Polish dress, which, upon his restoration, Charles wished to introduce into Britain. It was not altered for the French till his intimacy with that court was cemented by pecuniary dependence. |