... I deny not but this may suit well
enough with the French, for as we, who are a more sullen people, come to
be diverted at our plays, so they, who are of an airy and gay temper,
come thither to make themselves more serious."[56] With what an air of
innocent unconsciousness the sarcasm is driven home! Again, while he was
still slaving at these bricks without straw, he says: "The present French
poets are generally accused that, wheresoever they lay the scene, or in
whatever age, the manners of their heroes are wholly French. Racine's
Bajazet is bred at Constantinople, but his civilities are conveyed to him
by some secret passage from Versailles into the Seraglio." It is curious
that Voltaire, speaking of the _Berenice_ of Racine, praises a passage in
it for precisely what Dryden condemns: "Il semble qu'on entende
_Henriette_ d'Angleterre elle-meme parlant au marquis de _Vardes_. La
politesse de la cour de _Louis XIV_., l'agrement de la langue Francaise,
la douceur de la versification la plus naturelle, le sentiment le plus
tendre, tout se trouve dans ce peu de vers." After Dryden had broken
away from the heroic style, he speaks out more plainly. In the Preface
to his "All for Love," in reply to some cavils upon "little, and not
essential decencies," the decision about which he refers to a master of
ceremonies, he goes on to say: "The French poets, I confess, are strict
observers of these punctilios; .
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