All for Love
John Dryden
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INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The age of Elizabeth, memorable for so many reasons in the
history of England, was especially brilliant in literature,
and, within literature, in the drama. With some falling off
in spontaneity, the impulse to great dramatic production lasted
till the Long Parliament closed the theaters in 1642; and when
they were reopened at the Restoration, in 1660, the stage only
too faithfully reflected the debased moral tone of the court
society of Charles II.
John Dryden (1631-1700), the great representative figure in
the literature of the latter part of the seventeenth century,
exemplifies in his work most of the main tendencies of the time.
He came into notice with a poem on the death of Cromwell in 1658,
and two years later was composing couplets expressing his loyalty
to the returned king. He married Lady Elizabeth Howard, the
daughter of a royalist house, and for practically all the rest of
his life remained an adherent of the Tory Party. In 1663 he
began writing for the stage, and during the next thirty years
he attempted nearly all the current forms of drama. His "Annus
Mirabilis" (1666), celebrating the English naval victories over
the Dutch, brought him in 1670 the Poet Laureateship. He had,
meantime, begun the writing of those admirable critical essays,
represented in the present series by his Preface to the "Fables"
and his Dedication to the translation of Virgil. In these he
shows himself not only a critic of sound and penetrating
judgment, but the first master of modern English prose style.
With "Absalom and Achitophel," a satire on the Whig leader,
Shaftesbury, Dryden entered a new phase, and achieved what
is regarded as "the finest of all political satires." This
was followed by "The Medal," again directed against the Whigs,
and this by "Mac Flecknoe," a fierce attack on his enemy and
rival Shadwell. The Government rewarded his services by
a lucrative appointment.
After triumphing in the three fields of drama, criticism,
and satire, Dryden appears next as a religious poet in his
"Religio Laici," an exposition of the doctrines of the Church
of England from a layman's point of view. In the same year
that the Catholic James II. ascended the throne, Dryden joined
the Roman Church, and two years later defended his new religion
in "The Hind and the Panther," an allegorical debate between two
animals standing respectively for Catholicism and Anglicanism.
The Revolution of 1688 put an end to Dryden's prosperity; and
after a short return to dramatic composition, he turned to
translation as a means of supporting himself. He had already
done something in this line; and after a series of translations
from Juvenal, Persius, and Ovid, he undertook, at the age of
sixty-three, the enormous task of turning the entire works of
Virgil into English verse. How he succeeded in this, readers of
the "Aeneid" in a companion volume of these classics can judge
for themselves. Dryden's production closes with the collection
of narrative poems called "Fables," published in 1700, in which
year he died and was buried in the Poet's Corner in Westminster
Abbey.
Dryden lived in an age of reaction against excessive religious
idealism, and both his character and his works are marked by
the somewhat unheroic traits of such a period. But he was,
on the whole, an honest man, open minded, genial, candid, and
modest; the wielder of a style, both in verse and prose,
unmatched for clearness, vigor, and sanity.
Three types of comedy appeared in England in the time of Dryden--
the comedy of humors, the comedy of intrigue, and the comedy of
manners--and in all he did work that classed him with the
ablest of his contemporaries. He developed the somewhat
bombastic type of drama known as the heroic play, and brought
it to its height in his "Conquest of Granada"; then, becoming
dissatisfied with this form, he cultivated the French classic
tragedy on the model of Racine. This he modified by combining
with the regularity of the French treatment of dramatic action
a richness of characterization in which he showed himself
a disciple of Shakespeare, and of this mixed type his best
example is "All for Love." Here he has the daring to challenge
comparison with his master, and the greatest testimony to his
achievement is the fact that, as Professor Noyes has said,
"fresh from Shakespeare's 'Antony and Cleopatra,' we can still
read with intense pleasure Dryden's version of the story."
DEDICATION
To the Right Honourable, Thomas, Earl of Danby, Viscount Latimer,
and Baron Osborne of Kiveton, in Yorkshire; Lord High Treasurer
of England, one of His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council,
and Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter.
My Lord,
The gratitude of poets is so troublesome a virtue to great men,
that you are often in danger of your own benefits: for you are
threatened with some epistle, and not suffered to do good in
quiet, or to compound for their silence whom you have obliged.
Yet, I confess, I neither am or ought to be surprised at this
indulgence; for your lordship has the same right to favour
poetry, which the great and noble have ever had--
Carmen amat, quisquis carmine digna gerit.
There is somewhat of a tie in nature betwixt those who are born
for worthy actions, and those who can transmit them to posterity;
and though ours be much the inferior part, it comes at least
within the verge of alliance; nor are we unprofitable members
of the commonwealth, when we animate others to those virtues,
which we copy and describe from you.
It is indeed their interest, who endeavour the subversion of
governments, to discourage poets and historians; for the best
which can happen to them, is to be forgotten. But such who,
under kings, are the fathers of their country, and by a just and
prudent ordering of affairs preserve it, have the same reason
to cherish the chroniclers of their actions, as they have to lay
up in safety the deeds and evidences of their estates; for such
records are their undoubted titles to the love and reverence of
after ages. Your lordship's administration has already taken up
a considerable part of the English annals; and many of its most
happy years are owing to it. His Majesty, the most knowing judge
of men, and the best master, has acknowledged the ease and
benefit he receives in the incomes of his treasury, which you
found not only disordered, but exhausted. All things were in the
confusion of a chaos, without form or method, if not reduced
beyond it, even to annihilation; so that you had not only
to separate the jarring elements, but (if that boldness of
expression might be allowed me) to create them. Your enemies
had so embroiled the management of your office, that they looked
on your advancement as the instrument of your ruin. And as if
the clogging of the revenue, and the confusion of accounts, which
you found in your entrance, were not sufficient, they added their
own weight of malice to the public calamity, by forestalling the
credit which should cure it. Your friends on the other side were
only capable of pitying, but not of aiding you; no further help
or counsel was remaining to you, but what was founded on
yourself; and that indeed was your security; for your diligence,
your constancy, and your prudence, wrought most surely within,
when they were not disturbed by any outward motion. The highest
virtue is best to be trusted with itself; for assistance only can
be given by a genius superior to that which it assists; and it is
the noblest kind of debt, when we are only obliged to God and
nature. This then, my lord, is your just commendation, and that
you have wrought out yourself a way to glory, by those very means
that were designed for your destruction: You have not only
restored but advanced the revenues of your master, without
grievance to the subject; and, as if that were little yet,
the debts of the exchequer, which lay heaviest both on the crown,
and on private persons, have by your conduct been established
in a certainty of satisfaction. An action so much the more great
and honourable, because the case was without the ordinary relief
of laws; above the hopes of the afflicted and beyond the
narrowness of the treasury to redress, had it been managed by a
less able hand. It is certainly the happiest, and most unenvied
part of all your fortune, to do good to many, while you do injury
to none; to receive at once the prayers of the subject, and the
praises of the prince; and, by the care of your conduct, to give
him means of exerting the chiefest (if any be the chiefest)
of his royal virtues, his distributive justice to the deserving,
and his bounty and compassion to the wanting. The disposition
of princes towards their people cannot be better discovered than
in the choice of their ministers; who, like the animal spirits
betwixt the soul and body, participate somewhat of both natures,
and make the communication which is betwixt them. A king, who is
just and moderate in his nature, who rules according to the laws,
whom God has made happy by forming the temper of his soul to the
constitution of his government, and who makes us happy, by
assuming over us no other sovereignty than that wherein our
welfare and liberty consists; a prince, I say, of so excellent
a character, and so suitable to the wishes of all good men, could
not better have conveyed himself into his people's apprehensions,
than in your lordship's person; who so lively express the same
virtues, that you seem not so much a copy, as an emanation of
him. Moderation is doubtless an establishment of greatness; but
there is a steadiness of temper which is likewise requisite in a
minister of state; so equal a mixture of both virtues, that he
may stand like an isthmus betwixt the two encroaching seas of
arbitrary power, and lawless anarchy. The undertaking would be
difficult to any but an extraordinary genius, to stand at the
line, and to divide the limits; to pay what is due to the great
representative of the nation, and neither to enhance, nor to
yield up, the undoubted prerogatives of the crown. These, my
lord, are the proper virtues of a noble Englishman, as indeed
they are properly English virtues; no people in the world being
capable of using them, but we who have the happiness to be born
under so equal, and so well-poised a government;--a government
which has all the advantages of liberty beyond a commonwealth,
and all the marks of kingly sovereignty, without the danger of
a tyranny. Both my nature, as I am an Englishman, and my reason,
as I am a man, have bred in me a loathing to that specious name
of a republic; that mock appearance of a liberty, where all who
have not part in the government, are slaves; and slaves they are
of a viler note, than such as are subjects to an absolute
dominion. For no Christian monarchy is so absolute, but it is
circumscribed with laws; but when the executive power is in the
law-makers, there is no further check upon them; and the people
must suffer without a remedy, because they are oppressed by their
representatives. If I must serve, the number of my masters, who
were born my equals, would but add to the ignominy of my bondage.
The nature of our government, above all others, is exactly suited
both to the situation of our country, and the temper of the
natives; an island being more proper for commerce and for
defence, than for extending its dominions on the Continent; for
what the valour of its inhabitants might gain, by reason of its
remoteness, and the casualties of the seas, it could not so
easily preserve: And, therefore, neither the arbitrary power of
One, in a monarchy, nor of Many, in a commonwealth, could make us
greater than we are. It is true, that vaster and more frequent
taxes might be gathered, when the consent of the people was not
asked or needed; but this were only by conquering abroad, to be
poor at home; and the examples of our neighbours teach us, that
they are not always the happiest subjects, whose kings extend
their dominions farthest. Since therefore we cannot win by an
offensive war, at least, a land war, the model of our government
seems naturally contrived for the defensive part; and the consent
of a people is easily obtained to contribute to that power which
must protect it. Felices nimium, bona si sua norint, Angligenae!
And yet there are not wanting malcontents among us, who,
surfeiting themselves on too much happiness, would persuade the
people that they might be happier by a change. It was indeed the
policy of their old forefather, when himself was fallen from the
station of glory, to seduce mankind into the same rebellion with
him, by telling him he might yet be freer than he was; that is
more free than his nature would allow, or, if I may so say, than
God could make him. We have already all the liberty which
freeborn subjects can enjoy, and all beyond it is but licence.
But if it be liberty of conscience which they pretend, the
moderation of our church is such, that its practice extends not
to the severity of persecution; and its discipline is withal so
easy, that it allows more freedom to dissenters than any of the
sects would allow to it. In the meantime, what right can be
pretended by these men to attempt innovation in church or state?
Who made them the trustees, or to speak a little nearer their own
language, the keepers of the liberty of England? If their call
be extraordinary, let them convince us by working miracles; for
ordinary vocation they can have none, to disturb the government
under which they were born, and which protects them. He who has
often changed his party, and always has made his interest the
rule of it, gives little evidence of his sincerity for the public
good; it is manifest he changes but for himself, and takes the
people for tools to work his fortune. Yet the experience of all
ages might let him know, that they who trouble the waters first,
have seldom the benefit of the fishing; as they who began the
late rebellion enjoyed not the fruit of their undertaking,
but were crushed themselves by the usurpation of their own
instrument. Neither is it enough for them to answer, that
they only intend a reformation of the government, but not the
subversion of it: on such pretence all insurrections have been
founded; it is striking at the root of power, which is obedience.
Every remonstrance of private men has the seed of treason in it;
and discourses, which are couched in ambiguous terms, are
therefore the more dangerous, because they do all the mischief
of open sedition, yet are safe from the punishment of the laws.
These, my lord, are considerations, which I should not pass so
lightly over, had I room to manage them as they deserve; for no
man can be so inconsiderable in a nation, as not to have a share
in the welfare of it; and if he be a true Englishman, he must at
the same time be fired with indignation, and revenge himself as
he can on the disturbers of his country. And to whom could I
more fitly apply myself than to your lordship, who have not only
an inborn, but an hereditary loyalty? The memorable constancy
and sufferings of your father, almost to the ruin of his estate,
for the royal cause, were an earnest of that which such a parent
and such an institution would produce in the person of a son.
But so unhappy an occasion of manifesting your own zeal, in
suffering for his present majesty, the providence of God, and
the prudence of your administration, will, I hope, prevent; that,
as your father's fortune waited on the unhappiness of his
sovereign, so your own may participate of the better fate which
attends his son. The relation which you have by alliance to the
noble family of your lady, serves to confirm to you both this
happy augury. For what can deserve a greater place in the
English chronicle, than the loyalty and courage, the actions and
death, of the general of an army, fighting for his prince and
country? The honour and gallantry of the Earl of Lindsey is so
illustrious a subject, that it is fit to adorn an heroic poem;
for he was the protomartyr of the cause, and the type of his
unfortunate royal master.
Yet after all, my lord, if I may speak my thoughts, you are happy
rather to us than to yourself; for the multiplicity, the cares,
and the vexations of your employment, have betrayed you from
yourself, and given you up into the possession of the public.
You are robbed of your privacy and friends, and scarce any hour
of your life you can call your own. Those, who envy your
fortune, if they wanted not good-nature, might more justly pity
it; and when they see you watched by a crowd of suitors, whose
importunity it is impossible to avoid, would conclude, with
reason, that you have lost much more in true content, than you
have gained by dignity; and that a private gentleman is better
attended by a single servant, than your lordship with so
clamorous a train. Pardon me, my lord, if I speak like a
philosopher on this subject; the fortune which makes a man
uneasy, cannot make him happy; and a wise man must think himself
uneasy, when few of his actions are in his choice.
This last consideration has brought me to another, and a very
seasonable one for your relief; which is, that while I pity your
want of leisure, I have impertinently detained you so long a
time. I have put off my own business, which was my dedication,
till it is so late, that I am now ashamed to begin it; and
therefore I will say nothing of the poem, which I present to you,
because I know not if you are like to have an hour, which, with a
good conscience, you may throw away in perusing it; and for the
author, I have only to beg the continuance of your protection to
him, who is,
My Lord,
Your Lordship's most obliged,
Most humble, and
Most obedient, servant,
John Dryden.
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