To search his plays for vigorous sallies and sententious elegancies, or to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by solicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.

His dramatick labours did not so wholly absorb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epistles of Ovid; one of which he translated himself, and another in conjunction with the earl of Mulgrave.

Absalom and Achitophel is a work so well known, that particular criticism is superfluous. If it be considered as a poem political and controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English composition.

It is not, however, without faults; some lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with David.

The subject had likewise another inconvenience; it admitted little imagery or description; and a long poem of mere sentiments easily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interposition of something that sooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the rest.

As an approach to historical truth was necessary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is, therefore, an unpleasing disproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a faction formed out of many sects various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and strong by their supports, while the king's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either part are set forth to view; but when expectation is at the height, the king makes a speech, and

Henceforth a series of new times began.

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brass, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?

In the second part, written by Tate, there is a long insertion, which, for poignancy of satire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, can add great force to general principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.

The Medal, written upon the same principles with Absalom and Achitophel, but upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem, therefore, since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor, perhaps, generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very skilfully delineated and strongly coloured:

Power was his aim; but, thrown from that pretence, The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence, And malice reconcil'd him to his prince. Him, in the anguish of his soul, he serv'd; Rewarded faster still than he deserv'd: Behold him now exalted into trust; His counsels oft convenient, seldom just. Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave, He had a grudging still to be a knave. The frauds he learnt in his fanatick years, Made him uneasy in his lawful gears: At least as little honest as he could; And, like white witches, mischievously good. To this first bias, longingly he leans; And rather would be great by wicked means.

The Threnodia, which, by a term I am afraid neither authorized nor analogical, he calls Augustalis, is not among his happiest productions. Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetick. He seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. "He is," he says, "petrified with grief;" but the marble sometimes relents, and trickles in a joke:

The sons of art all med'cines try'd, And ev'ry noble remedy apply'd:

With emulation each essay'd His utmost skill; nay, more, they prayd; Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.

He had been a little inclined to merriment before upon the prayers of a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep heathen fables out of his religion:

With him th' innumerable crowd of armed prayers Knock'd at the gates of heav'n, and knock'd aloud; The first well-meaning rude petitioners All for his life assail'd the throne; All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own. So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar; 'Twas almost borne by force, as in the giants' war. The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard: His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.

There is, throughout the composition, a desire of splendour without wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.

He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or elegiack poetry. His poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew is, undoubtedly, the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm: "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas, indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond; the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.

In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendour of the second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the word diapason is too technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another:

From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began: When nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay, And could not heave her head, The tuneful voice was heard from high. Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold and hot, and moist and dry, In order to their stations leap, And musick's power obey. From harmony, from heavenly harmony, This universal frame began; From harmony to harmony Through all the compass of the notes it ran, The diapason closing full in man.

The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis of musick untuning had found some other place:

As from the power of sacred lays The spheres began to move. And sung the great creator's praise To all the bless'd above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour This crumbling pageant shall devour, The trumpet shall be heard on high, The dead shall live, the living die, And musick shall untune the sky.

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which the following lines discover their author:

Though all these rare endowments of the mind Were in a narrow space of life confin'd, The figure was with full perfection crown'd; Though not so large an orb, as truly round: As when in glory, through the publick place, The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass, And but one day for triumph was allow'd, The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd; And so the swift procession hurry'd on, That all, tho' not distinctly, might be shown; So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confin'd, She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind: And multitudes of virtues pass'd along; Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng, Ambitious to be seen, and then make room For greater multitudes that were to come.

Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away; Moments were precious in so short a stay. The haste of heaven to have her was so great, That some were single acts, though each complete; And ev'ry act stood ready to repeat.

This piece, however, is not without its faults; there is so much likeness in the initial comparison, that there is no illustration. As a king would be lamented, Eleonora was lamented:

As, when some great and gracious monarch dies, Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise Among the sad attendants; then the sound Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around, Through town and country, till the dreadful blast Is blown to distant colonies at last; Who then, perhaps, were off'ring vows in vain, For his long life, and for his happy reign: So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim, Till publick as the loss the news became.

This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub, that it is as green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river waters a country.

Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he celebrates: the praise being, therefore, inevitably general, fixes no impression upon the reader, nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation. Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the architect.

The Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of Browne, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full effulgence of his genius would be found. But, unhappily, the subject is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of metrical disputation:

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.

This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther, the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for what can be more absurd, than that one beast should counsel another to rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not have an infallible judge without knowing where?

The hind, at one time, is afraid to drink at the common brook, because she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the catholick church.

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country Mouse of Montague and Prior; and, in the detection and censure of the incongruity of the fiction, chiefly consists the value of their performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very forcible or animated.

Pope, whose judgment was, perhaps, a little bribed by the subject, used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may, therefore, reasonably infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial paragraph:

A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd. Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd: Without unspotted, innocent within, She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin. Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds, And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly, And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.

To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestick turn of heroick poesy;" and, perhaps, he might have executed his design not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a presbyterian, whose emblem is the wolf, is not very heroically majestick:

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face: Never was so deform'd a beast of grace. His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears, Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears, And pricks up his predestinating ears.

His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroick poesy:

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest, And stand like Adam naming ev'ry beast, Were weary work; nor will the muse describe A slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound, In fields their sullen conventicles found. These gross, half-animated lumps I leave; Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive; But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher Than matter, put in motion, may aspire; Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay, So drossy, so divisible are they, As would but serve pure bodies for allay: Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things As only buzz to heaven with evening wings; Strike in the dark, offending but by chance; Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance. They know no being, and but hate a name; To them the hind and panther are the same.

One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of heroick dignity:

For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair To ferny heaths and to their forest lair, She made a mannerly excuse to stay, Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way; That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk Might help her to beguile the tedious walk. With much good-will the motion was embrac'd, To chat awhile on their adventures past: Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgot Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot. Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd, Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance chang'd, She thought this hour th' occasion would present To learn her secret cause of discontent, Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd, Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast. And more a gentlewoman than the rest. After some common talk what rumours ran, The lady of the spotted muff began.

The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the whole: the king is now Caesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is given to the supreme being.

But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions are made are now become obscure, and, perhaps, there may be many satirical passages little understood.

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few negligencies in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument suffers little from the metre.

In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright and translator.

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation was such that no man was unwilling to serve the muses under him.

The general character of this translation will be given when it is said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed sentences and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected; but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is, therefore, perhaps, possible to give a better representation of that great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated, some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.

With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform mediocrity without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious effort of the mind.

There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that one of these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the juvenile performance.

Not long afterwards he undertook, perhaps, the most arduous work of its kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was qualified, by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are, therefore, difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which, perhaps, he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the inconvenience of a language so much inferiour in harmony to the Latin, it cannot be expected that they who read the Georgicks and the Aeneid should be much delighted with any version.

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter. The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts. The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.

The hopes of the publick were riot disappointed. He produced, says Pope, "the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.

His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgicks; and, as he professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.

Ver. 1.

"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.

"It's unlucky, they say, to stumble at the threshold: but what has a plenteous harvest to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe rules for that which depends not on the husbandman's care, but the disposition of heaven altogether. Indeed, the plenteous crop depends somewhat on the good method of tillage; and where the land's ill-manur'd, the corn, without a miracle, can be but indifferent; but the harvest may be good, which is its properest epithet, tho' the husbandman's skill were never so indifferent. The next sentence is too literal: and when to plough had been Virgil's meaning, and intelligible to every body; and when to sow the corn, is a needless addition.

Ver. 3.

"The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine, And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine,

"would as well have fallen under the cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit pecori, as Mr. D.'s deduction of particulars.

Ver. 5

"The birth and genius of the frugal bee I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

"But where did experientia ever signify birth andgenius? or what ground was there for such a figure in this place? How much more manly is Mr. Ogylby's version?

"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs 'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines: What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees, And several arts improving frugal bees; I sing, Maecenas.

"Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose than Mr. D.'s six.

Ver. 22.

"From fields and mountains to my song repair.

"For patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycaei—Very well explained!

Ver. 23, 24.

"Inventor Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil, Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!

"Written as if these had been Pallas's invention. The ploughman's toil's impertinent.

Ver. 25.

"The shroud-like cypress——

"Why shroud-like? Is a cypress pulled up by the roots, which the sculpture in the last Eclogue fills Silvanus's hand with, so very like a shroud? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of cypress used often for scarves and hatbands, at funerals formerly, or for widows' veils, &c. ? If so, 'twas a deep, good thought.

Ver. 26.

"That wear The royal honours, and increase the year.

"What's meant by increasing the year? Did the gods or goddesses add more months, or days, or hours, to it? Or how can arva tueri signify to wear rural honours? Is this to translate, or abuse an author? The next couplet is borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, because less to the purpose than ordinary.

Ver. 33.

"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.

"Idle, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the precedent couplet; so again, he interpolates Virgil with that and the round circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st around; a ridiculous Latinism, and an impertinent addition; indeed the whole period is but one piece of absurdity and nonsense, as those who lay it with the original must find.

Ver. 42, 43.

"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.

"Was he consul or dictator there?

"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.

"Both absurd interpolations."

Ver. 47, 48.

"Where in the void of heaven a place is free.

"Ah, happy D——n, were that place for thee!

"But where is that void? Or, what does our translator mean by it? He knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

"The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.

"No, he would not then have gotten out of his way so fast.

Ver. 56.

"Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.

"What made her then so angry with Ascalaphus, for preventing her return? She was now mus'd to Patience under the determinations of Fate, rather than fond of her residence,

Ver. 61, 62, 63.

"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares, Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs, And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.

"Which is such a wretched perversion of Virgil's noble thought as Vicars would have blushed at; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his better lines:

"O, wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline, And grant assistance to my bold design! Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs, And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.

"This is sense, and to the purpose: the other, poor mistaken stuff."

Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abetters, and of whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design were ashamed of his insolence.

When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined, and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them; and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Aeneid, which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry, I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been, perhaps some old catalogue informed me.

With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid; to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge of schoolboys.

Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without use.

It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day [122].

By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism, continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.

His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a mode of writing, which the Italians call refaccimento, a renovation of ancient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to pass without censure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the general preface, and in a poetical dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits seems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon was formerly a tale of such reputation, that, at the revival of letters, it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures and embellishing our language.

In this volume are interspersed some short original poems, which, with his prologues, epilogues, and songs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that even those, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.

One composition must, however, be distinguished. The ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If, indeed, there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works, that excellence must be found. Compared with the ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced, perhaps, superiour in the whole; but without any single part equal to the first stanza of the other.

It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: some of the lines are without correspondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected, but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving.

His last stanza has less emotion than the former; but it is not less elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the musick of Timotheus, which "raised a mortal to the skies," had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which "drew an angel down," had a real effect: the crown, therefore, could not reasonably be divided.

In a general survey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compositions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.

The power that predominated in his intellectual operations, was rather strong reason than quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of society, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.

What he says of love may contribute to the explanation of his character:

Love various minds does variously inspire; It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire, Like that of incense on the altar laid; But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:

A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows, With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

Dryden's was not one of the "gentle bosoms:" love, as it subsists in itself, with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for correspondent kindness; such love as shuts out all other interest; the love of the golden age, was too soft and subtile to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervescence with some other desires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by difficulties: when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge.

He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleasure; and, for the first part of his life, he looked on Otway with contempt, though, at last, indeed very late, he confessed that in his play "there was nature, which is the chief beauty."

We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a servile submission to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with false magnificence. It was necessary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection, or by curiosity; by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing new appearances of things. Sentences were readier at his call than images; he could more easily fill the ear with some splendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that slumber in the heart.

The favourite exercise of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument might not be too soon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and necessity, destiny and contingence; these he discusses in the language of the school with so much profundity, that the terms which he uses are not always understood. It is, indeed, learning, but learning out of place.

When once he had engaged himself in disputation, thoughts flowed in on either side: he was now no longer at a loss; he had always objections and solutions at command; "verbaque provisam rem"—give him matter for his verse, and he finds, without difficulty, verse for his matter.

In comedy, for which he professes himself not naturally qualified, the mirth which he excites will, perhaps, not be found so much to arise from any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely distinguished and diligently pursued, as from incidents and circumstances, artifices and surprises; from jests of action rather than of sentiment. What he had of humorous or passionate, he seems to have had not from nature, but from other poets; if not always as a plagiary, at least as an imitator.

Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring sallies of sentiment, in the irregular and eccentrick violence of wit. He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to mingle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss of unideal vacancy. This inclination sometimes produced nonsense, which he knew; as,

Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover's pace, Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race. Amamel flies To guard thee from the demons of the air; My flaming sword above them to display, All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which, perhaps, he was not conscious:

Then we upon our orb's last verge shall go, And see the ocean leaning on the sky; From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know, And on the lunar world securely pry.

These lines have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley on another book,

'Tis so like sense 'twill serve the turn as well?

This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced sentiments either great or bulky, and many images either just or splendid:

I am as free as nature first made man, Ere the base laws of servitude began, When wild in woods the noble savage ran.

—'Tis but because the living death ne'er knew, They fear to prove it, as a thing that's new: Let me th' experiment before you try, I'll show you first how easy 'tis to die.

—There with a forest of their darts he strove, And stood like Capaneus defying Jove, With his broad sword the boldest beating down, While fate grew pale, lest he should win the town, And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.

—I beg no pity for this mouldering clay; For if you give it burial, there it takes Possession of your earth; If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds That strew my dust diffuse my royalty, And spread me o'er your clime; for where one atom Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.

Of these quotations the two first may be allowed to be great, the two latter only tumid.

Of such selection there is no end. I will add only a few more passages; of which the first, though it may, perhaps, not be quite clear in prose, is not too obscure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble[123]:

No, there is a necessity in fate, Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;

He keeps his object ever full in sight; And that assurance holds him firm and right; True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss, But right before there is no precipice; Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.

Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:

What precious drops are these, Which silently each other's track pursue, Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

Resign your castle——

—Enter, brave sir; for, when you speak the word, The gates shall open of their own accord; The genius of the place its lord shall meet, And bow its tow'ry forehead at your feet.

These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the theatre; and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for vengeance upon him: "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to please, even when I wrote them." There is, surely, reason to suspect that he pleased himself, as well as his audience; and that these, like the harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.

He had, sometimes, faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.

He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"—and "veer starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the wind."—His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:

They nature's king through nature's opticks view'd; Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.

He had heard of reversing a telescope, and unluckily reverses the object. He is, sometimes, unexpectedly mean. When he describes the supreme being as moved by prayer to stop the fire of London, what is his expression?

A hollow crystal pyramid he takes, In firmamental waters dipp'd above, Of this a broad extinguisher he makes, And hoods the flames that to their quarry strove.

When he describes the last day, and the decisive tribunal, he intermingles this image:

When rattling bones together fly, From the four quarters of the sky.

It was, indeed, never in his power to resist the temptation of a jest. In his elegy on Cromwell:

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd, Than the light monsieur the grave don outweigh'd; His fortune turn'd the scale——

He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to show, as may be suspected, the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the use of French words, which had then crept into conversation; such as fraicheur for coolness, fougue for turbulence, and a few more, none of which the language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they stood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators.

These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond recital. Such is the unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines are seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed. Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he seldom struggled after supreme excellence, but snatched in haste what was within his reach; and when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep present to his mind an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works, such as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he should be opposed. He had more musick than Waller, more vigour than Donham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was in no danger. Standing, therefore, in the highest place, he had no care to rise by contending with himself; but while there was no name above his own, was willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms.

He was no lover of labour. What he thought sufficient, he did not stop to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had once written, he dismissed from his thoughts; and, I believe, there is no example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after publication. The hastiness of his productions might be the effect of necessity; but his subsequent neglect could hardly have any other cause than impatience of study.

What can be said of his versification, will be little more than a dilatation of the praise given it by Pope:

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join The varying verse, the full resounding line, The long majestick march, and energy divine.

Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was commonly feeble. If Cowley had sometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and yet preserve the smoothness of his metre.

Of triplets and alexandrines, though he did not introduce the use, he established it. The triplet has long subsisted among us. Dryden seems not to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary; and in Hall's Satires, published five years before the death of Elizabeth.

The alexandrine was, I believe, first used by Spenser, for the sake of closing his stanza with a fuller sound. We had a longer measure of fourteen syllables, into which the Aeneid was translated by Phaer, and other works of the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad was, I believe, the last.

The two first lines of Phaer's third Aeneid will exemplify this measure:

When Asia's state was overthrown, and Priam's kingdom stout, All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted out.

As these lines had their break, or caesura, always at the eighth syllable, it was thought, in time, commodious to divide them: and quatrains of lines, alternately, consisting of eight and six syllables, make the most soft and pleasing of our lyrick measures; as,

Relentless time, destroying pow'r, Which stone and brass obey, Who giv'st to ev'ry flying hour To work some new decay.

In the alexandrine, when its power was once felt, some poems, as Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and sometimes the measures of twelve and fourteen syllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley was the first that inserted the alexandrine at pleasure among the heroick lines of ten syllables, and from him Dryden professes to have adopted it[124].

The triplet and alexandrine are not universally approved. Swift always censured them, and wrote some lines to ridicule them. In examining their propriety, it is to be considered that the essence of verse is regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verse, is to dispose syllables and sounds harmonically by some known and settled rule; a rule, however, lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without disappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and spondees, differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or grave syllables, variously disposed. The Latin never deviates into seven feet, or exceeds the number of seventeen syllables; but the English alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and surprises the reader with two syllables more than he expected.

The effect of the triplet is the same: the ear has been accustomed to expect a new rhyme in every couplet; but is on a sudden surprised with three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces of the margins. Surely there is something unskilful in the necessity of such mechanical direction.

Considering the metrical art simply as a science, and, consequently, excluding all casualty, we must allow that triplets and alexandrines, inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that constancy to which science aspires. And though the variety which they produce may very justly be desired, yet, to make our poetry exact, there ought to be some stated mode of admitting them.

But till some such regulation can be formed, I wish them still to be retained in their present state. They are sometimes grateful to the reader, and sometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was too liberal, and Pope too sparing, in their use.

The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, and he valued himself for his readiness in finding them; but he is sometimes open to objection.

It is the common practice of our poets to end the second line with a weak or grave syllable:

Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly, Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.

Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in the first:

Laugh all the powers that favour tyranny, And all the standing army of the sky.

Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a couplet, which, though the French seem to do it without irregularity, always displeases in English poetry.

The alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the sixth syllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden sometimes neglected:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.

Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus, may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble.

The invocation before the Georgicks is here inserted from Mr. Milbourne's version, that, according to his own proposal, his verses may be compared with those which he censures:

What makes the richest tilth, beneath what signs To plough, and when to match your elms and vines;

What care with flocks, and what with herds agrees, And all the management of frugal bees; I sing, Maecenas! Ye immensely clear, Vast orbs of light, which guide the rolling year; Bacchus, and mother Ceres, if by you We fatt'ning corn for hungry mast pursue, If, taught by you, we first the cluster prest, And thin cold streams with sprightly juice refresht; Ye fawns, the present numens of the field, Wood nymphs and fawns, your kind assistance yield; Your gifts I sing! And thou, at whose fear'd stroke From rending earth the fiery courser broke, Great Neptune, O assist my artful song! And thou to whom the woods and groves belong, Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plains In mighty herds the Caean isle maintains! Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divine E'er to improve thy Maenalas incline, Leave thy Lycaean wood and native grove, And with thy lucky smiles our work approve! Be Pallas too, sweet oil's inventor, kind; And he who first the crooked plough design'd! Sylvanus, god of all the woods, appear, Whose hands a new-drawn tender cypress bear! Ye gods and goddesses, who e'er with love Would guard our pastures and our fields improve! You, who new plants from unknown lands supply, And with condensing clouds obscure the sky, And drop 'em softly thence in fruitful show'rs; Assist my enterprise, ye gentler pow'rs!

And thou, great Caesar! though we know not yet Among what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty seat; Whether thou'lt be the kind tutelar god Of thy own Rome; or with thy awful nod Guide the vast world, while thy great hand shall bear The fruits and seasons of the turning year, And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles wear; Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway, And seamen only to thyself shall pray, Thule, the farthest island, kneel to thee, And, that thou may'st her son by marriage be,

Tethys will for the happy purchase yield To make a dowry of her wat'ry field; Whether thou'lt add to heaven a brighter sign, And o'er the summer months serenely shine; Where between Cancer and Erigone, There yet remains a spacious room for thee; Where the hot Scorpion too his arms declines, And more to thee than half his arch resigns; Whate'er thou'lt be; for sure the realms below No just pretence to thy command can show: No such ambition sways thy vast desires, Though Greece her own Elysian fields admires. And now, at last, contented Proserpine Can all her mother's earnest pray'rs decline. Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course; And with thy smiles our bold attempts enforce; With me th' unknowing rustics' wants relieve, And, though on earth, our sacred vows receive!

Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer his Remarks on the Tragedies of the last Age, wrote observations on the blank leaves; which, having been in the possession of Mr. Garrick, are, by his favour, communicated to the publick, that no particle of Dryden may be lost:

"That we may the less wonder why pity and terrour are not now the only springs on which our tragedies move, and that Shakespeare may be more excused, Rapin confesses that the French tragedies, now all run on the tendre; and gives the reason, because love is the passion which most predominates in our souls, and that, therefore, the passions represented become insipid, unless they are conformable to the thoughts of the audience. But it is to be concluded, that this passion works not now amongst the French so strongly as the other two did amongst the ancients. Amongst us, who have a stronger genius for writing, the operations from the writing are much stronger; for the raising of Shakespeare's passions is more from the excellency of the words and thoughts, than the justness of the occasion; and if he has been able to pick single occasions, he has never founded the whole reasonably: yet, by the genius of poetry in writing, he has succeeded.

"Rapin attributes more to the dictio, that is, to the words and discourse of a tragedy, than Aristotle has done, who places them in the last rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, because they are the last product of the design, of the disposition or connexion of its parts; of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable: 'Tis not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 'tis the discourses, when they are natural and passionate: so are Shakespeare's.

"The parts of a poem, tragick or heroick, are,

"1. The fable itself.

"2. The order or manner of its contrivance, in relation of the parts to the whole.

"3. The manners, or decency, of the characters, in speaking or acting what is proper for them, and proper to be shown by the poet.

"4. The thoughts which express the manners.

"5. The words which express those thoughts.

"In the last of these Homer excels Virgil; Virgil all other ancient poets; and Shakespeare all modern poets.

"For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought to have a beginning, middle, and an end, all just and natural; so that that part, e.g. which is the middle, could not naturally be the beginning or end, and so of the rest: all depend on one another, like the links of a curious chain. If terrour and pity are only to be raised, certainly this author follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles' and Euripides' example: but joy may be raised too, and that doubly, either by seeing a wicked man punished, or a good man at last fortunate; or, perhaps, indignation, to see wickedness prosperous, and goodness depressed: both these may be profitable to the end of tragedy, reformation of manners; but the last improperly, only as it begets pity in the audience: though Aristotle, I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the second form.

"He who undertakes to answer this excellent critique of Mr. Rymer, in behalf of our English poets against the Greek, ought to do it in this manner: either by yielding to him the greatest part of what he contends for, which consists in this, that the 'mithos', i. e. the design and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terrour and pity; yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English poets.

"But the answerer ought to prove two things: first, that the fable is not the greatest masterpiece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.

"Secondly, that other ends, as suitable to the nature of tragedy, may be found in the English, which were not in the Greek.

"Aristotle places the fable first; not 'quoad dignitatem, sed quoad fundamentum:' for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of his, pity and terrour, will operate nothing on our affections, except the characters, manners, thoughts, and words, are suitable.

"So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the greatest part of them, we are inferiour to Sophocles and Euripides: and this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I think, a little partially to the ancients.

"For the fable itself, 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes, and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if the action be but one, and that plain, without any counterturn of design or episode, i.e. underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English, which have both underplot and a turned design, which keeps the audience in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see through the whole design at first.

"For the characters, they are neither so many nor so various in Sophocles and Euripides, as in Shakespeare and Fletcher; only they are more adapted to those ends of tragedy which Aristotle commends to us, pity and terrour.

"The manners flow from the characters, and, consequently, must partake of their advantages and disadvantages.

"The thoughts and words, which are the fourth and fifth beauties of tragedy, are certainly more noble and more poetical in the English than in the Greek, which must be proved by comparing them somewhat more equitably than Mr. Rymer has done.

"After all, we need not yield, that the English way is less conducing to move pity and terrour, because they often show virtue oppressed and vice punished; where they do not both, or either, they are not to be defended.

"And if we should grant that the Greeks performed this better, perhaps it may admit of dispute, whether pity and terrour are either the prime, or, at least, the only ends of tragedy.

"'Tis not enough that Aristotle has said so; for Aristotle drew his models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, if he had seen ours, might have changed his mind. And chiefly we have to say (what I hinted on pity and terrour, in the last paragraph save one,) that the punishment of vice and reward of virtue are the most adequate ends of tragedy, because most conducing to good example of life. Now, pity is not so easily raised for a criminal (and the ancient tragedy always represents its chief person such) as it is for an innocent man; and the suffering of innocence and punishment of the offender is of the nature of English tragedy: contrarily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy often, and the offender escapes. Then we are not touched with the sufferings of any sort of men so much as of lovers; and this was almost unknown to the ancients; so that they neither administered poetical justice, of which Mr. Rymer boasts, so well as we; neither knew they the best commonplace of pity, which is love.

"He, therefore, unjustly blames us for not building on what the ancients left us; for it seems, upon consideration of the premises, that we have wholly finished what they began.

"My judgment on this piece is this: that it is extremely learned, but that the author of it is better read in the Greek than in the English poets; that all writers ought to study this critique, as the best account I have ever seen of the ancients; that the model of tragedy he has here given is excellent, and extremely correct; but that it is not the only model of all tragedy, because it is too much circumscribed in plot, characters, &c.; and, lastly, that we may be taught here justly to admire and imitate the ancients, without giving them the preference with this author, in prejudice to our own country.

"Want of method in this excellent treatise makes the thoughts of the author sometimes obscure.

"His meaning, that pity and terrour are to be moved, is, that they are to be moved, as the means conducing to the ends of tragedy, which are pleasure and instruction.

"And these two ends may be thus distinguished. The chief end of the poet is to please; for his immediate reputation depends on it.

"The great end of the poem is to instruct, which is performed by making pleasure the vehicle of that instruction; for poesy is an art, and all arts are made to profit. Rapin.

"The pity, which the poet is to labour for, is for the criminal, not for those or him whom he has murdered, or who have been the occasion of the tragedy. The terrour is likewise in the punishment of the same criminal; who, if he be represented too great an offender, will not be pitied: if altogether innocent, his punishment will be unjust.

"Another obscurity is, where he says, Sophocles perfected tragedy by introducing the third actor; that is, he meant, three kinds of action; one company singing, or speaking; another playing on the musick; a third dancing.

"To make a true judgment in this competition betwixt the Greek poets and the English, in tragedy:

"Consider, first, how Aristotle has defined a tragedy. Secondly, what he assigns the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he thinks the beauties of it. Fourthly, the means to attain the end proposed.

"Compare the Greek and English tragick poets justly, and without partiality, according to those rules.

"Then, secondly, consider whether Aristotle has made a just definition of tragedy; of its parts, of its ends, and of its beauties; and whether he, having not seen any others but those of Sophocles, Euripides, &c. had or truly could determine what all the excellencies of tragedy are, and wherein they consist.

"Next, show in what ancient tragedy was deficient: for example, in the narrowness of its plots, and fewness of persons; and try whether that be not a fault in the Greek poets; and whether their excellency was so great, when the variety was visibly so little; or whether what they did was not very easy to do.

"Then make a judgment on what the English have added to their beauties: as, for example, not only more plot, but also new passions; as, namely, that of love, scarcely touched on by the ancients, except in this one example of Phaedra, cited by Mr. Rymer; and in that how short they were of Fletcher!

"Prove also that love, being an heroick passion, is fit for tragedy, which cannot be denied, because of the example alleged of Phaedra; and how far Shakespeare has outdone them in friendship, &c.

"To return to the beginning of this inquiry; consider if pity and terrour be enough for tragedy to move: and I believe, upon a true definition of tragedy, it will be found that its work extends farther, and that it is to reform manners, by a delightful representation of human life in great persons, by way of dialogue. If this be true, then not only pity and terrour are to be moved, as the only means to bring us to virtue, but generally love to virtue, and hatred to vice; by showing the rewards of one, and punishments of the other; at least, by rendering virtue always amiable, though it be shown unfortunate; and vice detestable, though it be shown triumphant.

"If, then, the encouragement of virtue and discouragement of vice be the proper ends of poetry in tragedy, pity and terrour, though good means, are not the only. For all the passions, in their turns, are to be set in a ferment: as joy, anger, love, fear, are to be used as the poet's commonplaces; and a general concernment for the principal actors is to be raised, by making them appear such in their characters, their words, and actions, as will interest the audience in their fortunes.

"And if, after all, in a larger sense, pity comprehends this concernment for the good, and terrour includes detestation for the bad, then let us consider whether the English have not answered this end of tragedy as well as the ancients, or perhaps better.

"And here Mr. Rymer's objections against these plays are to be impartially weighed, that we may see whether they are of weight enough to turn the balance against our countrymen.

"'Tis evident those plays, which he arraigns, have moved both those passions in a high degree upon the stage.

"To give the glory of this away from the poet, and to place it upon the actors, seems unjust.

"One reason is, because whatever actors they have found, the event has been the same; that is, the same passions have been always moved: which shows, that there is something of force and merit in the plays themselves, conducing to the design of raising these two passions: and suppose them ever to have been excellently acted, yet action only adds grace, vigour, and more life, upon the stage; but cannot give it wholly where it is not first. But, secondly, I dare appeal to those who have never seen them acted, if they have not found these two passions moved within them: and if the general voice will carry it, Mr. Rymer's prejudice will take off his single testimony.

"This, being matter of fact, is reasonably to be established by this appeal; as, if one man says it is night, when the rest of the world conclude it to be day, there needs no farther argument against him, that it is so.

"If he urge, that the general taste is depraved, his arguments to prove this can, at best, but evince that our poets took not the best way to raise those passions; but experience proves against him, that those means, which they have used, have been successful, and have produced them.

"And one reason of that success is, in my opinion, this: that Shakespeare and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age and nation in which they lived; for though nature, as he objects, is the same in all places, and reason too the same; yet the climate, the age, the disposition of the people, to whom a poet writes, may be so different, that what pleased the Greeks would not satisfy an English audience.

"And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to please the Athenians, than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the English, it only shows that the Athenians were a more judicious people; but the poet's business is certainly to please the audience.

"Whether our English audience have been pleased, hitherto, with acorns, as he calls it, or with bread, is the next question; that is, whether the means which Shakespeare and Fletcher have used, in their plays, to raise those passions before named, be better applied to the ends by the Greek poets than by them. And, perhaps, we shall not grant him this wholly: let it be granted, that a writer is not to run down with the stream, or to please the people by their usual methods, but rather to reform their judgments, it still remains to prove that our theatre needs this total reformation.

"The faults, which he has found in their designs, are rather wittily aggravated in many places than reasonably urged; and as much may be returned on the Greeks, by one who were as witty as himself.

"They destroy not, if they are granted, the foundation of the fabrick: only take away from the beauty of the symmetry: for example, the faults in the character of the king, in King and No King, are not, as he makes them, such as render him detestable, but only imperfections which accompany human nature, and are, for the most part, excused by the violence of his love; so that they destroy not our pity or concernment for him: this answer may be applied to most of his objections of that kind.

"And Rollo committing many murders, when he is answerable but for one, is too severely arraigned by him; for, it adds to our horrour and detestation of the criminal; and poetick justice is not neglected neither; for we stab him in our minds for every offence which he commits; and the point, which the poet is to gain on the audience, is not so much in the death of an offender as the raising an horrour of his crimes.

"That the criminal should neither be wholly guilty, nor wholly innocent, but so participating of both as to move both pity and terrour, is certainly a good rule, but not perpetually to be observed; for that were to make all tragedies too much alike; which objection he foresaw, but has not fully answered.

"To conclude, therefore; if the plays of the ancients are more correctly plotted, ours are more beautifully written. And, if we can raise passions as high on worse foundations, it shows our genius in tragedy is greater; for in all other parts of it the English have manifestly excelled them."

The original of the following letter is preserved in the library at Lambeth, and was kindly imparted to the publick by the reverend Dr. Vyse.

Copy of an original letter from John Dryden, esq. to his sons in Italy, from a MS. in the Lambeth library, marked N deg.. 933, p. 56.

(Superscribed)

"All' illustrissimo Sig're Carlo Dryden, Camariere d'Honore a S.S.

"In Roma.

"Franca per Mantoua.

"DEAR SONS,

"Sept. the 3d, our style.

"Being now at sir William Bowyer's in the country, I cannot write at large, because I find myself somewhat indisposed with a cold, and am thick of hearing, rather worse than I was in town. I am glad to find, by your letter of July 26th, your style, that you are both in health; but wonder you should think me so negligent as to forget to give you an account of the ship in which your parcel is to come. I have written to you two or three letters concerning it, which I have sent by safe hands, as I told you, and doubt not but you have them before this can arrive to you. Being out of town, I have forgotten the ship's name, which your mother will inquire, and put it into her letter, which is joined with mine. But the master's name I remember: he is called Mr. Ralph Thorp; the ship is bound to Leghorn, consigned to Mr. Peter and Mr. Thomas Ball, merchants. I am of your opinion, that by Tonson's means almost all our letters have miscarried for this last year. But, however, he has missed of his design in the dedication, though he had prepared the book for it; for in every figure of Aeneas he has caused him to be drawn like king William, with a hooked nose. After my return to town, I intend to alter a play of sir Robert Howard's, written long since, and lately put by him into my hands; 'tis called the Conquest of China by the Tartars. It will cost me six weeks' study, with the probable benefit of a hundred pounds. In the mean time, I am writing a song for St. Cecilia's Feast, who, you know, is the patroness of musick. This is troublesome, and no way beneficial; but I could not deny the stewards of the feast, who came in a body to me to desire that kindness, one of them being Mr. Bridgman, whose parents are your mother's friends. I hope to send you thirty guineas between Michaelmas and Christmas, of which I will give you an account when I come to town. I remember the counsel you give me in your letter; but dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my talent; yet, for your sake, I will struggle with the plain openness of my nature, and keep in my just resentments against that degenerate order. In the mean time I flatter not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty, and suffer for God's sake; being assured, beforehand, never to be rewarded, though the times should alter. Towards the latter end of this month, September, Charles will begin to recover his perfect health, according to his nativity, which, casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things hitherto have happened accordingly to the very time that I predicted them: I hope, at the same time, to recover more health, according to my age. Remember me to poor Harry, whose prayers I earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds in the world beyond its desert or my expectation. You know the profits might have been more; but neither my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take them: but I never can repent of my constancy, since I am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for which I suffer. It has pleased God to raise up many friends to me amongst my enemies, though they who ought to have been my friends are negligent of me. I am called to dinner, and cannot go on with this letter, which I desire you to excuse; and am

"Your most affectionate father,

"JOHN DRYDEN."

[Footnote 92: The life of Dryden is written with more than Johnson's usual copiousness of biography, and with peculiar vigour and justness of criticism. "None, perhaps, of the Lives of the Poets," says the Edinburgh Review, for October, 1808, "is entitled to so high a rank. No prejudice interfered with his judgment; he approved his politics; he could feel no envy of such established fame; he had a mind precisely formed to relish the excellencies of Dryden—more vigorous than refined; more reasoning than impassioned." Edinburgh Review, xxv. p. 117. Many dates, however, and little facts have been rectified by Mr. Malone, in his most minute Account of the Life and Writings of John Dryden; and sir Walter Scott, in the life prefixed to his edition of Dryden's works, has been still more industrious in the collection of incidents and contemporary writings, that can only interest the antiquary. Those to whom Johnson's life seems not sufficiently ample, we refer to the above works. For an eulogy on Dryden's powers, as a satirist, see the notes on the Pursuits of Literature. ED.]

[Footnote 93: Mr. Malone has lately proved, that there is no satisfactory evidence for this date. The inscription on Dryden's monument says only "natus 1632." See Malone's Life of Dryden, prefixed to his Critical and Miscellaneous Prose Works, p. 5. note. C.]

[Footnote 94: Of Cumberland. Ibid. p. 10. C.]

[Footnote 95: Mr. Malone has furnished us with a detailed account of our poet's circumstances, from which it appears, that although he was possessed of a sufficient income, in the early part of his life, he was considerably embarrassed at its close. See Malone's Life, p. 440.]

[Footnote 96: Mr. Derrick's Life of Dryden was prefixed to a very beautiful and correct edition of Dryden's Miscellanies, published by the Tonsons, in 1760,4 vols. 8vo. Derrick's part, however, was poorly executed, and the edition never became popular. C.]

[Footnote 97: He went off to Trinity college, and was admitted to a bachelor's degree in Jan. 1653-4, and in 1657 was made M.A.]

[Footnote 98: This is a mistake; his poem on the death of lord Hastings appeared in a volume entitled Tears of the Muses on the death of Henry Lord Hastings. 8vo. 1649. M.]

[Footnote 99: The order of his plays has been accurately ascertained by Mr. Malone. C.]

[Footnote 100: The duke of Guise was his first attempt in the drama, but laid aside, and afterwards new modelled. See Malone, p. 51.]

[Footnote 101: See Malone, p. 91.]

[Footnote 102: He did not obtain the laurel till Aug. 18, 1670, but Mr. Malone informs us, the patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced from the Midsummer after Davenant's death. C.]

[Footnote 103: Downes says it was performed on a very unlucky day, viz. that on which the duke of Monmouth landed in the west; and he intimates, that the consternation into which the kingdom was thrown by this event, was a reason why it was performed but six times, and was in general ill received. H.]

[Footnote 104: This is a mistake. It was set to musick by Purcell, and well received, and is yet a favourite entertainment. H.]

[Footnote 105: Johnson has here quoted from memory. Warburton is the original relater of this anecdote, who says he had it from Southern himself. According to him, Dryden's usual price had been four guineas, and he made Southern pay six. In the edition of Southern's plays, 1774, we have a different deviation from the truth, five and ten guineas. M.]

[Footnote 106: Dr. Johnson, in this assertion, was misled by Langbaine. Only one of these plays appeared in 1678. Nor were there more than three in any one year. The dates are now added from the original editions. R.]

[Footnote 107: It was published in 1672. R.]

[Footnote 108: This remark, as Mr. Malone observes, is founded upon the erroneous dates with which Johnson was supplied by Langbaine. The Rehearsal was played in 1671, but not published till the next year; The Wild Gallant was printed in 1669, The Maiden Queen in 1668, Tyrannick Love in 1670; the two parts of Granada were performed in 1669 and 1670, though not printed till 1672. Additions were afterwards made to The Rehearsal, and among these are the parodies on Assignation, which are not to be found in Buckingham's play as it originally appeared. Mr. Malone denies that there is any allusion to Marriage a-la-mode. See Malone, p. 100. J. B.]

[Footnote 109: It is mentioned by A. Wood, Athen, Oxon. vol. ii. p. 804. 2nd ed. C.]

[Footnote 110: Dryden translated two entire epistles, Canace to Macareus, and Dido to Aeneas. Helen to Paris was translated by him and lord Mulgrave. Malone, J.B.]

[Footnote 111: Azaria and Hushai was written by Samuel Pordage, a dramatick writer of that time.]

[Footnote 112: Dr. John Reynolds, who lived temp. Jac. I. was at first a zealous papist, and his brother William as earnest a protestant; but by mutual disputation each converted the other. See Fuller's Church History, p. 47. book x. II.]

[Footnote 113: This is a mistake. See Malone, p. 194, &c.]

[Footnote 114: All Dryden's biographers have misdated this poem, which Mr. Malone's more accurate researches prove to have been published on the 4th of Oct. 1682.]

[Footnote 115: Albion and Albanius must, however, be excepted. R.]

[Footnote 116: This story has been traced to its source, and clearly proved to be a fabrication, by Mr. Malone. See Malone's Life, 347.]

[Footnote 117: An earlier account of Dryden's funeral than that above cited, though without the circumstances that preceded it, is given by Edward Ward, who, in his London Spy, published in 1706, relates, that on the occasion there was a performance of solemn musick at the college, and that at the procession, which himself saw, standing at the end of Chancery lane, Fleet street, there was a concert of hautboys and trumpets. The day of Dryden's interment, he says, was Monday, the 13th of May, which, according to Johnson, was twelve days after his decease, and shows how long his funeral was in suspense. Ward knew not that the expense of it was defrayed by subscription; but compliments lord Jefferies for so pious an undertaking. He also says, that the cause of Dryden's death was an inflammation in his toe, occasioned by the flesh growing over the nail, which, being neglected, produced a mortification in his leg. H.]

[Footnote 118: In the register of the College of Physicians, is the following entry: "May 3, 1700. Comitiis Censoriis ordinariis. At the request of several persons of quality, that Mr. Dryden might be carried from the College of Physicians to be interred at Westminster, it was unanimously granted by the president and censors."

This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to the narrative concerning lord Jefferies. R.]

[Footnote 119: See what is said on this head with regard to Cowley and Addison, in their respective lives.]

[Footnote 120: Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dr. J.]

[Footnote 121: We are not about to attempt a justification of Dryden's strange use, in the above stanzas, of nautical phrases, but we must remark, that Johnson's antipathy to ships, and every thing connected with them, made him unusually sensitive of any thing like naval technicalities. And yet surely the occasional and judicious use of them in description is quite as allowable as the introduction of allusions to the printing office or bookseller's shop, with which Johnson happened to be familiar, and, therefore, did not disapprove. St. Paul did not disdain to adopt naval phraseology in his exquisite narrative of his own perils by sea. ED.]

[Footnoteb 122: A heart-sinking and painful depression has been experienced by most of us on concluding a favourite author; but the sensation has never been more vividly portrayed in language, than in the above passage. ED.]

[Footnote 123: I cannot see why Johnson has thought there was any want of clearness in this passage even in prose. Addison has given us almost the very same thought in very good prose: "If we look forward to him [the deity] for help, we shall never be in danger of falling down those precipices which our imagination is apt to create. Like those who walk upon a line, if we keep our eye fixed upon one point, we may step forward securely; whereas an imprudent or cowardly glance on either side will infallibly destroy us." Spectator, No. 615. J.B.]

[Footnote 124: This is an error. The alexandrine inserted among heroick lines of ten syllables is found in many of the writers of queen Elizabeth's reign. It will be sufficient to mention Hall, who has already been quoted for the use of the triplet:

As tho' the staring world hang'd on his sleeve. Whenever he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to grieve.

Hall's Sat. book i. sat. 7.

Take another instance:

For shame! or better write or Labeo write none.

Hall's Sat. book ii. sat 1. J.B.]



SMITH

Edmund Smith is one of those lucky writers who have, without much labour, attained high reputation, and who are mentioned with reverence, rather for the possession, than the exertion of uncommon abilities.

Of his life little is known; and that little claims no praise but what can be given to intellectual excellence, seldom employed to any virtuous purpose. His character, as given by Mr. Oldisworth, with all the partiality of friendship, which is said, by Dr. Burton, to show "what fine things one man of parts can say of another," and which, however, comprises great part of what can be known of Mr. Smith, it is better to transcribe, at once, than to take by pieces. I shall subjoin such little memorials as accident has enabled me to collect.

Mr. Edmund Smith was the only son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neale, by a daughter of the famous baron Lechmere. Some misfortunes of his father, which were soon followed by his death, were the occasion of the son's being left very young in the hands of a near relation, (one who married Mr. Neale's sister,) whose name was Smith.

This gentleman and his lady treated him as their own child, and put him to Westminster school, under the care of Dr. Busby; whence, after the loss of his faithful and generous guardian, (whose name he assumed and retained,) he was removed to Christ church, in Oxford, and there, by his aunt, handsomely maintained till her death; after which he continued a member of that learned and ingenious society, till within five years of his own; though, some time before his leaving Christ church, he was sent for by his mother to Worcester, and owned and acknowledged as her legitimate son; which had not been mentioned, but to wipe off the aspersions that were ignorantly cast by some on his birth. It is to be remembered, for our author's honour, that, when at Westminster election he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose no small contention, between the representative electors of Trinity college, in Cambridge, and Christ church, in Oxon, which of those two royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of Trinity college having the preference of choice that year, they resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited, at the same time, to Christ church, chose to accept of a studentship there. Mr. Smith's perfections, as well natural as acquired, seem to have been formed upon Horace's plan, who says, in his Art of Poetry:

Ego nec studium sine divite vena, Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.

He was endowed by nature with all those excellent and necessary qualifications which are previous to the accomplishment of a great man. His memory was large and tenacious, yet, by a curious felicity, chiefly susceptible of the finest impressions it received from the best authors he read, which it always preserved in their primitive strength and amiable order.

He had a quickness of apprehension, and vivacity of understanding, which easily took in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of mathematicks and metaphysicks. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of his person, which yet was so well turned, that no neglect of himself in his dress could render it disagreeable; insomuch, that the fair sex, who observed and esteemed him, at once commended and reproved him by the name of the handsome sloven. An eager but generous and noble emulation grew up with him; which (as it were a rational sort of instinct) pushed him upon striving to excel in every art and science that could make him a credit to his college, and that college the ornament of the most learned and polite university; and it was his happiness to have several contemporaries and fellow-students who exercised and excited this virtue in themselves and others, thereby becoming so deservedly in favour with this age, and so good a proof of its nice discernment. His judgment, naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and distinguishing sagacity, which as it was active and busy, so it was vigorous and manly, keeping even paces with a rich and strong imagination, always upon the wing, and never tired with aspiring. Hence it was, that, though he writ as young as Cowley, he had no puerilities; and his earliest productions were so far from having any thing in them mean and trifling, that, like the junior compositions of Mr. Stepney, they may make grey authors blush. There are many of his first essays in oratory, in epigram, elegy, and epick, still handed about the university in manuscript, which show a masterly hand; and, though maimed and injured by frequent transcribing, make their way into our most celebrated miscellanies, where they shine with uncommon lustre. Besides those verses in the Oxford books, which he could not help setting his name to, several of his compositions came abroad under other names, which his own singular modesty, and faithful silence, strove in vain to conceal. The Encaenia and publick collections of the university upon state subjects, were never in such esteem, either for elegy or congratulation, as when he contributed most largely to them; and it was natural for those who knew his peculiar way of writing, to turn to his share in the work, as by far the most relishing part of the entertainment. As his parts were extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal. Though he was an academick the greatest part of his life, yet he contracted no sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch of disputation, or obstinate contention for the old or new philosophy, no assuming way of dictating to others, which are faults (though excusable) which some are insensibly led into, who are constrained to dwell long within the walls of a private college. His conversation was pleasant and instructive, and what Horace said of Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, might justly be applied to him: