The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 13Dryden, John
General
The works of John Dryden, now first collected in eighteen volumes. Volume 13
Dryden, John
Poetry
fruit and grains. Yet Juvenal, who calls his poems a _farrago_, which
is a word of the same signification with _satura_, has chosen to follow
the same method of Persius, and not of Horace; and Boileau, whose
example alone is a sufficient authority, has wholly confined himself,
in all his satires, to this unity of design. That variety, which is
not to be found in any one satire, is, at least, in many, written on
several occasions. And if variety be of absolute necessity in every
one of them, according to the etymology of the word, yet it may arise
naturally from one subject, as it is diversely treated, in the several
subordinate branches of it, all relating to the chief. It may be
illustrated accordingly with variety of examples in the subdivisions
of it, and with as many precepts as there are members of it; which,
altogether, may complete that _olla_, or hotchpotch, which is properly
a satire.
Under this unity of theme, or subject, is comprehended another rule
for perfecting the design of true satire. The poet is bound, and that
_ex officio_, to give his reader some one precept of moral virtue,
and to caution him against some one particular vice or folly. Other
virtues, subordinate to the first, may be recommended under that chief
head; and other vices or follies may be scourged, besides that which
he principally intends. But he is chiefly to inculcate one virtue, and
insist on that. Thus Juvenal, in every satire excepting the first, ties
himself to one principal instructive point, or to the shunning of moral
evil. Even in the sixth, which seems only an arraignment of the whole
sex of womankind, there is a latent admonition to avoid ill women,
by showing how very few, who are virtuous and good, are to be found
amongst them. But this, though the wittiest of all his satires, has yet
the least of truth or instruction in it. He has run himself into his
old declamatory way, and almost forgotten that he was now setting up
for a moral poet.
Persius is never wanting to us in some profitable doctrine, and in
exposing the opposite vices to it. His kind of philosophy is one, which
is the stoick; and every satire is a comment on one particular dogma
of that sect, unless we will except the first, which is against bad
writers; and yet even there he forgets not the precepts of the Porch.
In general, all virtues are every where to be praised and recommended
to practice; and all vices to be reprehended, and made either odious or
ridiculous; or else there is a fundamental error in the whole design.
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