Sebastian, high-spirited and fiery; the soul of royal
and military honour; the soldier and the king; almost embodies the
idea which the reader forms at the first mention of his name. Dorax,
to whom he is so admirable a contrast, is one of those characters whom
the strong hand of adversity has wrested from their natural bias; and
perhaps no equally vivid picture can be found, of a subject so awfully
interesting. Born with a strong tendency to all that was honourable
and virtuous, the very excess of his virtues became vice, when his own
ill fate, and Sebastian's injustice, had driven him into exile. By
comparing, as Dryden has requested, the character of Dorax, in the
fifth act, with that he maintains in the former part of the play, the
difference may be traced betwixt his natural virtues, and the vices
engrafted on them by headlong passion and embittering calamity. There
is no inconsistence in the change which takes place after his scene
with Sebastian; as was objected by those, whom the poet justly terms,
"the more ignorant sort of creatures." It is the same picture in a new
light; the same ocean in tempest and in calm; the same traveller, whom
sunshine has induced to abandon his cloak, which the storm only forced
him to wrap more closely around him. The principal failing of Dorax is
the excess of pride, which renders each supposed wound to his honour
more venomously acute; yet he is not devoid of gentler affections,
though even in indulging these the hardness of his character is
conspicuous.
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