The book was, however, of great service to dramatic poetry,
which, from that time, was less degraded by licence and indelicacy.
Dryden, it may be believed, had, as his comedies well deserved, a
liberal share of the general censure; but, however he might have felt
the smart of Collier's severity, he had the magnanimity to acknowledge
its justice. In the preface to the Fables, he makes the _amende
honorable._ "I shall say the less of Mr. Collier, because in many things
he has taxed me justly; and I have pleaded guilty to all thoughts and
expressions of mine, which can be truly argued of obscenity,
profaneness, or immorality, and retract them. If he be my enemy, let him
triumph; if he be my friend, as I have given him no personal occasion to
be otherwise, he will be glad of my repentance. It becomes me not to
draw my pen in the defence of a bad cause, when I have so often drawn it
for a good one." To this manly and liberal admission, he has indeed
tacked a complaint, that Collier had sometimes, by a strained
interpretation, made the evil sense of which he complained; that he had
too much "horse-play in his raillery;" and that, "if the zeal for God's
house had not eaten him up, it had at least devoured some part of his
good manners and civility." Collier seems to have been somewhat pacified
by this qualified acknowledgment, and, during the rest of the
controversy, turned his arms chiefly against Congreve, who resisted, and
spared, comparatively at least, the sullen submission of Dryden.
Pages:
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389