III. FROM THE TREATISE OF EDUCATION, TO 1644 AND now, lastly, will be the time to read with them those organic arts, which inable men to discourse and write perspicuously, elegantly, and according to the fitted stile of lofty, mean, or lowly. Logic, therefore, so much as is usefull, is to be referr'd to this due place, with 5 all her well coucht heads and Topics, untill it be time to open her contracted palm into a gracefull and ornate Rhetorick, taught out of the rule of Plato, Aristotle, Phalereus, Cicero, Hermogenes, Longinus. To which Poetry would be made subsequent, or indeed rather precedent, 10 as being lesse suttle and fine, but more simple, sensuous, and passionate. I mean not here the prosody of a verse, which they could not but have hit on before among the rudiments of grammar; but that sublime art which in Aristotles poetics, in Horace, and the Italian commentaries 15 of Castelvetro, Tasso, Mazzoni, and others, teaches what the laws are of a true Epic poem, what of a Dramatic, what of a Lyric, what decorum is, which is the grand master peece to observe. This would make them soon perceive what despicable creatures our common rimers and play 20 writes be, and shew them what Religious, what glorious and magnificent use might be made of Poetry, both in divine and humane things. ... IV. PREFACE TO PARADISE LOST 1668 The Verse THE as that of Homer in Greek, and of Virgil in Latin,- 25 Rime being no necessary Adjunct or true Ornament of Poem or good Verse, in longer Works especially, but the Invention of a barbarous Age, to set off wretched matter and lame Meeter; grac't indeed since by the use of some famous modern Poets, carried away by Custom, but much 5 to their own vexation, hindrance, and constraint to express many things otherwise, and for the most part worse, then else they would have exprest them. Not without cause therefore some both Italian and Spanish Poets of prime note have rejected Rime both in longer and shorter Works, 10 as have also long since our best English Tragedies, as a thing of it self, to all judicious eares, triveal and of no true musical delight; which consists only in apt Numbers, fit quantity of Syllables, and the sense variously drawn out from one Verse into another, not in the jingling sound 15 of like endings, a fault avoyded by the learned Ancients both in Poetry and all good Oratory. This neglect then of Rime so little is to be taken for a defect, though it may seem so perhaps to vulgar Readers, that it rather is to be esteem'd an example set, the first in English, of ancient 20 liberty recover'd to Heroic Poem from the troublesom and modern bondage of Rimeing. V. PREFACE TO SAMSON AGONISTES 1671 Of that sort of Dramatic Poem which is call'd Tragedy TRA RAGEDY, as it was antiently compos'd, hath been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most profitable of all other Poems; therefore said by Aristotle to be of power, 25 by raising pity and fear, or terror, to purge the mind of those and such like passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to just measure with a kind of delight, stirr'd up by reading or seeing those passions well imitated. Nor is Nature wanting in her own effects to make good his asser tion; for so, in Physic, things of melancholic hue and quality are us'd against melancholy, sowr against sowr, salt to remove salt humours. Hence Philosophers and other gravest Writers, as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite out of Tragic Poets, both to adorn and illus- 5 trate their discourse. The Apostle Paul himself thought it not unworthy to insert a verse of Euripides into the Text of Holy Scripture, 1 Cor. 15. 33; and Paræus, commenting on the Revelation, divides the whole Book, as a Tragedy, into Acts, distinguisht each by a Chorus of Heavenly 10 Harpings and Song between. Heretofore Men in highest dignity have labour'd not a little to be thought able to compose a Tragedy. Of that honour Dionysius the elder was no less ambitious then before of his attaining to the Tyranny. Augustus Cæsar also had begun his Ajax, but, 15 unable to please his own judgment with what he had begun, left it unfinisht. Seneca the Philosopher is by some thought the Author of those Tragedies (at lest the best of them) that go under that name. Gregory Nazianzen, a Father of the Church, thought it not unbeseeming the sanctity of 20 his person to write a Tragedy, which he entitl❜d Christ suffering. This is mention'd to vindicate Tragedy from the small esteem, or rather infamy, which in the account of many it undergoes at this day, with other common Interludes; hap'ning through the Poets error of inter- 25 mixing Comic stuff with Tragic sadness and gravity, or introducing trivial and vulgar persons: which by all judicious hath bin counted absurd, and brought in without discretion, corruptly to gratifie the people. And though antient Tragedy use no Prologue, yet using sometimes, 30 in case of self defence or explanation, that which Martial calls an Epistle, in behalf of this Tragedy, coming forth after the antient manner, much different from what among us passes for best, thus much before-hand may be Epistl'd: that Chorus is here introduc'd after the Greek manner, not 35 antient only, but modern, and still in use among the Italians. In the modelling therefore of this Poem, with good reason, the Antients and Italians are rather follow'd, as of much more authority and fame. The measure of Verse us'd in 5 the Chorus is of all sorts, call'd by the Greeks Monostrophic, or rather Apolelymenon, without regard had to Strophe, Antistrophe, or Epod; which were a kind of Stanza's fram'd only for the Music, then us'd with the Chorus that sung, not essential to the Poem, and therefore not material; 10 or being divided into Stanza's or Pauses, they may be call'd Allæostropha. Division into Act and Scene, referring chiefly to the Stage (to which this work never was intended), is here omitted. It suffices if the whole Drama be found not produc't 15 beyond the fift Act; of the style and uniformitie, and that commonly call'd the Plot, whether intricate or explicit,which is nothing indeed but such œconomy or disposition of the fable as may stand best with verisimilitude and decorum, they only will best judge who are not un20 acquainted with Eschulus, Sophocles, and Euripides, the three Tragic Poets unequall'd yet by any, and the best rule to all who endeavour to write Tragedy. The circumscription of time, wherein the whole Drama begins and ends, is, according to antient rule and best example, within 25 the space of 24 hours. SPINGARN APPENDIX FROM THE CONVERSATIONS OF 1619 I. BEN JONSON CERTAIN INFORMATIONS AND MANERS OF BEN JOHNSON'S TO W. DRUMMOND. I. THAT he had ane intention to perfect ane Epick Poeme intitled Heroologia, of the Worthies of this Country rowsed by Fame, and was to dedicate it to his Country; it is all in 5 couplets, for he detesteth all other rimes. Said he had written a Discourse of Poesie both against Campion and Daniel, especially this last, wher he proves couplets to be the bravest sort of verses, especially when they are broken, like Hexameters, and that crosse rimes and stanzaes (becaus 10 the purpose would lead him beyond 8 lines to conclude) were all forced. II. He recommended to my reading Quintilian, who, he said, would tell me the faults of my Verses as if he lived with me, and Horace, Plinius Secundus Epistles, Tacitus, 15 Juvenall, Martiall, whose Epigrame, Vitam quæ faciunt beatiorem, &c., he hath translated. III. HIS CENSURE OF THE ENGLISH POETS WAS THIS: That Sidney did not keep a decorum in making every one speak as well as himself. Spenser's stanzaes pleased him not, nor his matter; the 20 |