An Early Critic of Plays
IThe _writer .is one of our _oldest contributors. Articles by her appeared frequently in the Spectator during the editorships of Hutton and Townsend and of Strachey„ After a gap of some years we are glad to welcoMe her back to our columns.—ED: Spectator.] HO now reads the once popular book of Gerard Langbaine? An Account of the English Dramatick Poets : or, Some Observations and Remarks on the Lives • and Writings of all-those that have Publish'd either Comedies, Tragedies, Tragi-comedies, Pastorals, Masques, Interludes, Farces, or Operas in the English Tongue (Oxford, Printed by L. L.-for George West and Henry _Clements. An. Dom. 1691).
The author of this ambitious work, _ which _deals with two hundred and fifty writers, either immortal or now utterly forgotten, in legs than six hundred small pages, was born in 1656. He was the son of a learned divine of the same name, better known in Oxford than himself, a Fellow of Queen's and Provost of the College train 1645 till his death : a student whose editions of some of the Latin classics were admired in their day. It 'will be -seen that Dr. Gerard Langbaine flourished under the Common- wealth : his political opinions seem therefore uncertain : but he was not responsible for the ardent royalism of his son, for he died in 1657, when young Gerard was one year old. Oxford was Gerard's home : her tradi- tions were his native air ; knit he did not follow in his father's footsteps as to scholarship. He held a . law appointment in the University, and edited some of its publications, but it is evident-that his favourite studies were of a more frivolous kind. In his preface to the book described above, he says . . . " If I can but be so happy as to obtain a Pardon from the more solid part of mankind, for haVing mis-spent my Time in these Lighter Studies, I promise for the future, to imploy my self on Subjects of more Weight and Importance . . ." He had' no future : he died in 1692 at the age of thirty- six, a year after the publication of his English Dramatick Poets.
If nothing ,much better, the book is a monument of industry and a mine of curious information.' Gerard had already published a Catalogue of Plays and Their Writers-, of which this is something more than a much larger and improved edition. And he was not the first to deal with the subject, for he acknowledges his debt to various worthy forerunners as well as to "several Persons now living." But it was to his own studies, . " having employ'd a great part (if not too much) of my Time in reading Plays and Noveli, in several languages " . . . that he owed many discoveries of thefts and plagiarisms by play-writers Of his own and the preceding century : and • thus with unsparing plain- ness he does away with their pretenee of originality. Ile is not unreasonable enough to blame their rev al of old stories: his criticism is only directed against those who make,' in his view, a 1 dishonest 'use of other men's work. And they are neither few nor obscure, " Mr. Dryden " being among. the chief of them. His dislike of Dryden seems - personal; though it may have been, partly . political : Gerard Langbaine was not the man to admire, even- by a great poet and in the right direction, a 'convenient' transfer -of enthusiaim frein CromWell to the Stuarts. But it meant some courage to attack the first among living English men of -letters, even though. Dryden had kist his post as Laureate on the accession of William III. Langbaine is very angry with . Dryden for..the pontifical airs with . which, .while ".Apollo's substitute," he had .criticized his predecessors, " Mr. Shakegpear, Mr. Fletcher, Mr. Ben Johnson," to Say nothing of " his disobliging Reflections on several of his Patrol*. as well as the Poets his Cotemporaries." But the question of the . moment . was his .literury . dis- honesty : . ". his dexterity. in altering other Men's Thoughts, so as to make them pass for his own ; . . his Petty- Larcenies,- which notwithstanding his stiling of himself Saturnine, shew him sufficiently. Mercurial, at least, if Plagiaries may be accounted under the Government of that Planet " . . And so Langbaine goes On to turn Dryden's plays inside..out and to show the stuff they are made of, ending in his quaint way, " that Mr. Dryden may not think himself slighted," with the epigram written by Flecknoe : .
"Dryden, the Muses Darling and Delight,
Than whom none ever flew so high a flight" . . &c.
Comparing small game with great, it is amusing to notice Gerard Langbaine's treatment of the unlucky Mr. John Corey, " who is pleased to stile himself the Author, of a Play call'd. The Generous Enemie,s T .or he Ridiculous- Loveri, acted and printed in 1672." "Though," says the critic, " he has so little share in it, that we. may justly say of him ., . . If a Man should extract the things which he hath borrow'd from others, the Paper would be left blank " : and he proceeds to prove his contention by describing Mr. Corey's thefts. Still more unfortunate is Mr. Thomas Menton, " a Gentleman that lived in the Reign of King Charles the 2nd, and is certainly the meanest Dramatick Writer that ever England produc'd."
But Langbaine is not always so sourly critical. He shows due respect. to Mr. Shakespear, Mrs. Katherine Philips and a few _others. And he can be adorably courteous : witness the air with which he salutes dead authors such as Lady Pembroke and Lord Falkland, who each, after the fashion of the time, had earned a niche in his gallery.. . .
Gerard Langbaine's book, if it only touches a corner of a great subject, shows the place held by plays and playwrights in English society of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and is interesting as a catalogue of the known dramatists of the period. His critical judgments seem, on the whole, fairly just ; and, in any case, there is some amusement to be had from turning over the very living and plain-spoken pages of his old brown book.
E. C. P.
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