The ballad-opera, since invented, in which
part is sung, part acted and spoken, comes nearest to its description.
The plot of the piece contains nothing brilliantly ingenious: the
deities of Greece and Rome had been long hacknied machines in the
masks and operas of the sixteenth century; and it required little
invention to paint the duchess of York as Venus, or to represent her
husband protected by Neptune, and Charles consulting with Proteus. But
though the device be trite, the lyrical diction of the opera is most
beautifully sweet and flowing. The reader finds none of these harsh
inversions, and awkward constructions, by which ordinary poets are
obliged to screw their verses into the fetters of musical time.
Notwithstanding the obstacles stated by Dryden himself, every line
seems to flow in its natural and most simple order; and where the
music required repetition of a line, or a word, the iteration seems to
improve the sense and poetical effect. Neither is the piece deficient
in the higher requisites of lyric poetry. When music is to be "married
to immortal verse," the poet too commonly cares little with how
indifferent a yoke-mate he provides her. But Dryden, probably less
from a superior degree of care, than from that divine impulse which he
could not resist, has hurried along in the full stream of real poetry.
The description of the desolation of London, at the opening of the
piece, the speech of Augusta, in act second, and many other passages,
fully justify this encomium.
Pages:
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255