Essai sur la Poésie dramatique

o. Dans la préface de The State of Innocence, il dit du Paradis perdu, que c'est « un des poèmes les plus grands, les plus nobles et les plus sublimes qu'ait produits ce siècle ou notre nation ».

i40 JOHN DRYDEN ET LE THÉÂTRE.

pièces ne méritent plus que les leurs *. Tous attaquèrent le goût du jour ', et tous écrivirent pour le flatter ; ils se récrièrent contre Tenvahissement de la mise en scène, et composèrent des tragédies pour les yeux; ils déplorèrent que la comédie s'avilît en farces grossières, et s'appliquèrent à faire sans conviction des bouffonneries qu'ils garnirent de sang-froid de polissonneries préméditées*. Ils virent et accusèrent le courant

4. Tliough I hâve knounsome of late so Insolent to say, thatBewJoAnjonwrotehisbest P/(7yeJNvithoutWit;imagining, that ail the Witin Playes consistée! in bringing tMo Personsupon the Stage to break Jests, and to bob one another, which they call Repartie, not considering that there is more wit and invention requirM in the fînding ont good Humor, and Matter proper for it, than in ail their smart reparties. For in Ihe vvriling of a Humor, a Man isconfin'd not toswerve from theCharacter, and oblig'd to say nothing but what is proper to it : But in the PlayeSy\\h'\ch hâve been wrote of late, there is nosuch thingasperfectCharacler, but the Iwo chief Persons are most commonly a Swearing, Drinking, Whoring, Ruffian for a Lover, and an impudent ill-bred tomHg for a Mistress, and thèse are the fine Peopleof the P/ay;and there is that Latitude in this, thatalmostany thing is proper for them to say ; but their chief Subject is bawdy, and profaness which they call brisk wtiting, when the most dissolute of Men, that relish those things well enougli in private, are cAoA'rf at e'm in publick : and, methinks, if there were nothing but the ill Manners of it, it should make Poetsavoid that IndecentwayofWriting. (Préface de TheSullen Tjovers de Shadwell.) — « And then their Comédies now a days are the filthiest things, fuU of Bawdy and nauseous doings, which they mistake for raillery and Intrigue; besides they hâve nowitin^emneither; forall their Gentlemen and men of wit, as they style 'em, are eithersilly conceited impudent Coxcombs, or else rude ill-mannerly drunken Fellows — fogh — (Lady Squeamish, dans Friendship in Fashion d'Otway, acte I).

2. Voir, entre autres, Dryden, dédicace du Spanish Fryar eiDefenceof an Essay on Dramatic Poesy, Voir aussi presque tous les prologues et épilogues.

Dryden himself, to pleose a frantick Age, Was forc'd to let his Judgmeot stoop to Hage : To a wild Audience he confonn'd his Voice, Comply*d to CuHtom, but oot err*d by Choice. Deem then the Peoples, not the Writer's Sin, Almansgr's Rage, and Rants of Majcimin.

(Granville, Esaay. Upon tmnatural Flights in PoETRY. Œuvres, I, p. 03 et la note.)