To begin with Language. That an Alteration is lately made in ours or since the Writers of the last Age (in which I comprehend Shakespear, Fletcher and Jonson) is manifest. Any man who reads those excellent Poets, and compares their language with what is now written, will see it almost in every line. But, that this is an Improvement of the Language, or an alteration for the better, will not so easily be granted. For many are of a contrary opinion, that the English tongue was then in the height of its perfection; that, from Johnsons time to ours, it has been in a continual declination; like that of the Romans from the Age of Virgil to Statius, and so downward to Claudian: of which, not onely Petronius, but Quintilian himself so much complains, under the person of Secundus, in his famous Dialogue de causis corruptæ eloquentiæ.
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. . . I was speaking of their Sence and Language, and I dare almost challenge any man to show me a page together, which is correct in both. As forBen Johnson, I am loath to name him, because he is a most Judicious Writer; yet he very often falls into these errors. And I once more beg the Readers pardon, for accusing him or them. Onely let him consider that I live in an age where my least faults are severely censur'd: and that I have no way left to extenuate my failings but my showing as great in those whom we admire.

Cædimus, inque vicem præbemus cura sagittis  

I cast my eyes but by chance on Catiline; and in the three or four first pages, found enough to conclude that Johnson writ not correctly.

-- -- -- Let the long hid seeds
Of treason, in thee, now shoot forth in deeds
Ranker than horrour.  

In reading some bombast speeches of Macbeth, which are not to be understood, he us'd to say that it was horrour, and I am much afraid that this is so.

Thy parricide, late on thy onely Son,
After his mother, to make empty way
For thy last wicked Nuptials, worse than they
That blaze that act of thy incestuous life,
Which gain'd thee at once a daughter and a wife.  

The Sence is here extreamly perplex'd: and I doubt the word They is false Grammar.

-- -- And be free
Not Heaven it self from thy impiety.  

A Synchœsis, or ill placing of words, of which Tully so much complains in Oratory.

The Waves, and Dens of beasts cou'd not receive
The bodies that those souls were frighted from.  

The Preposition in the end of the sentence; a common fault with hirn, and which I have but lately observ'd in my own writings.

What all the several ills that visit earth,
Plague, famine, fire, could not reach unto,
The Sword nor surfeits, let thy fury do.  

Here are both the former faults: for, besides that the Preposition unto, is plac'd last in the verse, and at the half period, and is redundant, there is the former Synchœsis, in the words (The Sword nor Surfeits) which in construction ought to have been plac'd before the other.

Catiline sayes of Cethegus, that for his sake he would

Go on upon the Gods; kiss Lightning, wrest
The Engine from the Cyclops, and give fire
At face of a full clowd, and stand his ire.  

To go on upon, is onely to go on twice, to give fire at face of a full cloud, was not understood in his own time: (and stand his ire) besides the antiquated word ire there is the Article His, which makes false construction: and Giving fire at the face of a cloud, is a perfect image of shooting, however it came to be known in those daies to Catiline.

--- others there are
Whom Envy to the State draws and pulls on,
For Contumelies receiv'd; and such are sure ones.  

Ones in the plural Number: but that is frequent with him; for he sayes, not long after.

Caesar and Crassus; if they be ill men,
Are Mighty ones.
Such Men they do not succour more the cause, &c.  

They redundant.

Though Heav'n should speak with all his wrath at once;
We should stand upright and unfear'd.  

His is ill Syntax with Heaven; and by Unfear'd he means Unaffraid, words of a quite contrary signification.

The Ports are open,  

He perpetually uses Ports for Gates: which is an affected error in him, to introduce Latine by the loss of the English Idiom: as in the Translation of Tully's Speeches he usually does.

Well placing of Words for the sweetness of pronunciation was not known till Mr. Waller introduc'd it: and therefore 'tis not to be wonder'd if Ben Johnson has many such lines as these

But being bred up in his father's needy fortunes, Brought up in's sister's Prostitution, &c.  

But meaness of expression one would think not to be his error in a Tragedy, which ought to be more high and sounding than any other kind of Poetry, and yet amongst many others in Catiline I find these four lines together:

So Asia, thou art cruelly even
With us, for all the blows thee given:
When we, whose Vertues conquer'd thee,
Thus, by thy Vices, ruin'd be.  

Be there is false English; for are: though the Rhyme hides it.

But I am willing to close the Book, partly out of veneration to the Author, partly outof weariness to pursue an argument which is so fruitful in so small a compass. And what correctness, after this, can be expected from Shakespear or from Fletcher, who wanted that Learning and Care which Johnson had? I will therefore spare my own trouble of inquiring into their faults: who had they liv'd now, had doubtless written more correctly. I suppose it will be enough for me to affirm (as I think I safely may) that these and the like errors which I tax'd in the most correct of the last Age, are such, into which we doe not ordinarily fall. I think few of our present Writers would have left behind them such a line as this,

Contain your Spirit in more stricter bounds.  

But that gross way of two Comparatives was then, ordinary: and therefore more pardonable in Johnson.
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[Dryden turns to the writing of wit in the older dramatists.]

ForBen Johnson, the most judicious of Poets, he always writ properly; and as the Character requir'd: and I will not contest farther with my Friends who call that Wit. It being very certain, that even folly it self, well represented, is Wit in a larger signification: and that there is Fancy, as well as Judgement in it; though not so much or noble: because all Poetry being imitation, that of Folly is a lower exercise of Fancy, though perhaps as difficult as the other: for 'tis a kind of looking downward in the Poet; and representing that part of Mankind which is below him.

In these low Characters of Vice and Folly, lay the excellency of that inimitable Writer: who, when at any time, he aim'd at Wit, in the stricter sence, that is, Sharpness of Conceit, was forc'd either to borrow from the Ancients, as, to my knowledge he did very much from Plautus: or, when he trusted himself alone, often fell into meanness of expression. Nay, he was not free from the lowest and most groveling kind of Wit, which we call clenches; of which, Every Man in his Humour, is infinitely full, and, which is worse, the wittiest persons in the Drama speak them. His other Comedies are not exempted from them: will you give me leave to name some few? Asper, in which Character he personates himself, (and he neither was, nor thought himself a fool,) exclaiming against the ignorant Judges of the Age, speaks thus.

How monstrous and detested is't, to see
A fellow, that has neither Art nor Brain,
Sit like an Aristarchus, or Stark-Ass,
Taking Mens Lines, with a Tobacco-Face,
In Snuffe, &c.  

And presently after

I mar'le whose wit 'twas to put a Prologue in yond Sackbut's mouth? they might well think he would be out of Tune, and yet you'd play upon him too.  

Will you have another of the same stamp?

O, I cannot abide these limbs of Sattin, or rather Satan.  

But, it may be you will object that this was Asper, Macilente, or, Carlo Buffone: you shall, therefore, hear him speak in his own person: and. that, in the two last lines, or sting of an Epigram; 'tis Inscrib'd to Fine Grand: who, he says, was indebted to him for many things, which he reckons there: and concludes thus;

Forty things more, dear Grand, which you know true,
For which, or pay me quickly, or I'le pay you  

This was then the mode of wit, the vice of the Age and not Ben. Johnson's, for you see, a little before him, that admirable wit, Sir Philip Sidney, perpetually playing with his words. In his time, I believe, it ascended first into the Pulpit: where (if you will give me leave to clench too) it yet finds the benefit of its Clergy, for they are commonly the first corrupters of Eloquence, and the last reform'd from vicious Oratory: as a famous Italian has observ'd before me,   in his Treatise of the Corruption of the Italian Tongue; which he principally ascribes to Priests and preaching Friars.

But, to conclude with what brevity I can; I will only add this in the defence of our present Writers, that if they reach not some excellencies of Ben. Jonson; (which no Age, I am confident. ever shall) yet, at least, they are above that meanness of thought which I have tax'd, and which is frequent in him.

That the wit of this Age is much more Courtly, may easily be prov'd by viewing the Characters of Gentlemen which were written in the last. First, for Jonson, True-Wit in the Silent Woman, was his Master-piece, and True-wit was a Scholar-like kind of man, a Gentleman with an allay of Pedantry: a man who seems mortifi'd to the world, by much reading. The best of his discourse, is drawn, not from the knowledge of the Town, but Books, and, in short, he would be a fine Gentleman, in an University.
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And this leads me to the last and greatest advantage of our writing, which proceeds from conversation. In the Age, wherein those Poets liv'd, there was less of gallantry than in ours; neither did they keep the best company of theirs. Their fortune has been much like that of Epicurus, in the retirement of his Gardens: to live almost unknown, and to be celebrated after their decease. I cannot find that any of them were conversant in Courts, except Ben. Jonson: and his genius lay not so much that way, as to make an improvement by it. Greatness was not, then, so easy of access, nor conversation so free as now it is. I cannot, therefore, conceive it any insolence to affirm, that, by the knowledge, and pattern of their wit, who writ before us, and by the advantage of our own conversation, the discourse and Raillery of our Comedies excell what has been written by them, and this will be deny'd by none, but some few old fellows who value themselves on their acquaintance with the Black-Friars: who, because they saw their Playes, would pretend a right to judge ours. The memory of these grave Gentlemen is their only Plea for being Wits, they can tell a story of Ben. Jonson, and perhaps have had fancy enough to give a supper in Apollo that they might be call'd his Sons: and because they were drawn in to be laught at in those times, they think themselves now sufficiently intitled to laugh at ours. Learning I never saw in any of them, and wit no more than they could remember. In short, they were unlucky to have been bred in an unpolish'd Age, and more unlucky to live to a refin'd one. They have lasted beyond their own, and are cast behind ours: and not contented to have known little at the age of twenty, they boast of their ignorance at three score.
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[The conclusion of the essay.]

Let us therefore admire the beauties and the heights of Shakespear, without falling after him into a carelesness and (as I may call it) a Lethargy of thought, for whole Scenes together. Let us imitate, as we are able, the quickness and easiness of Fletcher, without proposing him as a pattern to us, either in the redundancy of his matter, or the incorrectness of his language. Let us admire his wit and sharpness of conceit; but, let us at the same time acknowledge that it was seldome so fix'd, and made proper to his characters, as that the same things might not be spoken by any person in the Play. Let us applaud his Scenes of Love; but, let us confess that he understood not either greatness or perfect honour in the parts of any of his women. In fine, let us allow, that he had so-much fancy, as when he pleas'd he could write wit: but that he wanted so much Judgment as seldome to have written humour; or describ'd a pleasant folly. Let us ascribe to Jonson the height and accuracy of Judgment, in the ordering of his Plots, his choice of characters, and maintaining what he had chosen, to the end, but let us not think him a perfect pattern of imitation; except it be in humour: for Love, which is the foundation of all Comedies in other Languages, is scarcely mention'd in any of his Playes, and for humour it self, the Poets of this Age will be more wary than to imitate the meanness of his persons. Gentlemen will now be entertain'd with the follies of each other; and though they allow Cob and Tib to speak properly, yet they are not much pleas'd with their Tankard or with their Raggs: And, surely, their conversation can be no jest to them on the Theatre, when they would avoid it in the street.

To conclude all, let us render to our Predecessors what is their due, without confineing our selves to a servile imitation of all they writ: and, without assuming to our selves the Title of better Poets, let us ascribe to the gallantry and civility of our age the advantage which we have above them; and to our knowledge of the customs and manners of it, the happiness we have to please beyond them.
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