a middle rank were then probably worse
educated than our mere vulgar. But the good old time bore rough and
manly spirits, who came prepared with a tribute of tears and laughter,
to bursts of pathos, or effusions of humour, although incapable of
receiving the delights which a cultivated mind derives from the
gradual developement of a story, the just dependence of its parts upon
each other, the minute beauties of language, and the absence of every
thing incongruous or indecorous. Dryden, on the other hand, wrote for
a stage patronized by a monarch and his courtiers, who were professed
judges of dramatic composition; while the rigour of religious
prejudice, and perhaps a just abhorrence of the licentious turn of the
drama, banished from the theatres a great proportion of the middle
classes, always the most valuable part of an audience; because, with a
certain degree of cultivation, they unite an unhacknied energy of
feeling. Art, therefore, became, in the days of Dryden, not only a
requisite qualification, but even the principal attribute of the
dramatic poet. He was to address himself to the heads and judgments of
his audience, on the acuteness of which they piqued themselves; not to
their feelings, stupified, probably, by selfish dissipation. Even the
acquisition and exercise of critical knowledge tends to blunt the
sense of natural beauties, as a refined harmonist becomes indifferent
to the strains of simple melody. Hence the sacrifices which
Shakespeare made, without being aware, to the taste of his age, were
amply compensated by his being called upon, and, as it were,
compelled, by the nature of his audience, to rouse them with his
thunder, and to melt them with his dew. I question much if the age of
Charles II. would have borne the introduction of Othello or Falstaff.
We may find something like Dryden's self-complacent opinion expressed
by the editor of Corneille, where he civilly admits, "_Corneille etoit
inegal comme Shakespeare, et plein de genie comme lui: mais le genie
de Corneille etoit a celui de Shakespeare ce qu' un seigneur est a
l'egard d'un homme de peuple, ne avec le meme esprit que lui._" In
other words, the works of the one retain the rough, bold tints of
nature and originality, while those of the other are qualified by the
artificial restraints which fashion imposes upon the _homme de
condition_. It is, therefore, unjustly, that Dryden dwells so long on
Shakespeare's irregularities, amongst which I can