No More Learning

What he wishes to say, he says at hazard; he cited Gorbuduc, which he
had never seen; gives a false account of Chapman's versification; and
discovers, in the preface to his Fables, that he translated the first
book of the Iliad without knowing what was in the second.

It will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever made any great advances
in literature. As, having distinguished himself at Westminster under the
tuition of Busby, who advanced his scholars to a height of knowledge very
rarely attained in grammar-schools, he resided afterwards at Cambridge,
it is not to be supposed, that his skill in the ancient languages was
deficient, compared with that of common students; but his scholastick
acquisitions seem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities.
He could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illustrious
merely by his learning. He mentions but few books, and those such as lie
in the beaten track of regular study; from which, if ever he departs, he
is in danger of losing himself in unknown regions.

In his Dialogue on the Drama, he pronounces, with great confidence, that
the Latin tragedy of Medea is not Ovid's, because it is not sufficiently
interesting and pathetick. He might have determined the question upon
surer evidence; for it is quoted by Quintilian as the work of Seneca; and
the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is
not there to be found. There was, therefore, no need of the gravity of
conjecture, or the discussion of plot or sentiment, to find what was
already known upon higher authority than such discussions can ever reach.

His literature, though not always free from ostentation, will be commonly
found either obvious, and made his own by the art of dressing it; or
superficial, which, by what he gives, shows what he wanted; or erroneous,
hastily collected, and negligently scattered.

Yet it cannot be said that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or
that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with
knowledge, and sparkle with illustrations. There is scarcely any science
or faculty that does not supply him with occasional images and lucky
similitudes; every page discovers a mind very widely acquainted both with
art and nature, and in full possession of great stores of intellectual
wealth. Of him that knows much, it is natural to suppose that he has read
with diligence; yet I rather believe that the knowledge of Dryden was
gleaned from accidental intelligence and various conversation, by a quick
apprehension, a judicious selection, and a happy memory, a keen appetite
of knowledge, and a powerful digestion; by vigilance that permitted
nothing to pass without notice, and a habit of reflection that suffered
nothing useful to be lost. A mind like Dryden's, always curious, always
active, to which every understanding was proud to be associated, and of
which every one solicited the regard, by an ambitious display of himself,
had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer way to knowledge than by the silent
progress of solitary reading. I do not suppose that he despised books,
or intentionally neglected them; but that he was carried out, by the
impetuosity of his genius, to more vivid and speedy instructors; and
that his studies were rather desultory and fortuitous than constant and
systematical.

It must be confessed, that he scarcely ever appears to want
book-learning, but when he mentions books; and to him may be transferred
the praise which he gives his master Charles:

His conversation, wit, and parts,
His knowledge in the noblest useful arts,
Were such, dead authors could not give,
But habitudes of those that live,
Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive:
He drained from all, and all they knew,
His apprehensions quick, his judgment true:
That the most learn'd with shame confess,
His knowledge more, his reading only less.

Of all this, however, if the proof be demanded, I will not undertake to
give it; the atoms of probability, of which my opinion has been formed,
lie scattered over all his works; and by him who thinks the question
worth his notice, his works must be perused with very close attention.

Criticism, either didactick or defensive, occupies almost all his prose,
except those pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but none of his
prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a
settled style, in which the first half of the sentence betrays the other.
The clauses are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word
seems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing
is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; what is
little, is gay; what fe great, is splendid. He may be thought to mention
himself too frequently; but, while he forces himself upon our esteem, we
cannot refuse him to stand high in his own. Every thing is excused by the
play of images, and the sprightliness of expression. Though all is easy,
nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and
though since his earlier works more than a century has passed, they have
nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.

He who writes much will not easily escape a manner, such a recurrence of
particular modes as may be easily noted. Dryden is always "another and
the same;" he does not exhibit a second time the same elegancies in the
same form, nor appears to have any art other than that of expressing
with clearness what he thinks with vigour. His style could not easily be
imitated, either seriously or ludicrously; for, being always equable and
always varied, it has no prominent or discriminative characters. The
beauty who is totally free from disproportion of parts and features,
cannot be ridiculed by an overcharged resemblance.

From his prose, however, Dryden derives only his accidental and secondary
praise; the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every
cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the
language, improved the sentiments, and tuned the numbers of English
poetry.

After about half a century of forced thoughts, and rugged metre, some
advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and
Denham; they had shown that long discourses in rhyme grew more pleasing
when they were broken into couplets, and that verse consisted not only in
the number but the arrangement of syllables.

But though they did much, who can deny that they left much to do? Their
works were not many, nor were their minds of very ample comprehension.
More examples of more modes of composition were necessary for the
establishment of regularity, and the introduction of propriety in word
and thought.

Every language of a learned nation necessarily divides itself into
diction scholastick and popular, grave and familiar, elegant and gross:
and from a nice distinction of these different parts arises a great part
of the beauty of style. But if we except a few minds, the favourites of
nature, to whom their own original rectitude was in the place of rules,
this delicacy of selection was little known to our authors; our speech
lay before them in a heap of confusion, and every man took for every
purpose, what chance might offer him.

There was, therefore, before the time of Dryden no poetical diction, no
system of words at once refined from the grossness of domestick use, and
free from the harshness of terms appropriated to particular arts. Words
too familiar, or too remote, defeat the purpose of a poet. From those
sounds which we hear on small or on coarse occasions, we do not easily
receive strong impressions, or delightful images; and words to which
we are nearly strangers, whenever they occur, draw that attention on
themselves which they should transmit to things.

Those happy combinations of words which distinguish poetry from prose had
been rarely attempted; we had few elegancies or flowers of speech; the
roses had not yet been plucked from the bramble; or different colours had
not been joined to enliven one another.

It may be doubted whether Waller and Denham could have overborne the
prejudices which had long prevailed, fend which even then were sheltered
by the protection of Cowley. The new versification, as it was called, may
be considered as owing its establishment to Dryden; from whose time it is
apparent that English poetry has had no tendency to relapse to its former
savageness.

The affluence and comprehension of our language is very illustriously
displayed in our poetical translations of ancient writers; a work which
the French seem to relinquish in despair, and which we were long unable
to perform with dexterity. Ben Jonson thought it necessary to copy Horace
almost word by word; Feltham, his contemporary and adversary, considers
it as indispensably requisite in a translation to give line for line. It
is said that Sandys, whom Dryden calls the best versifier of the
last age, has struggled hard to comprise every book of his English
Metamorphoses in the same number of verses with the original. Holyday had
nothing in view but to show that he understood his author, with so little
regard to the grandeur of his diction, or the volubility of his numbers,
that his metres can hardly be called verses; they cannot be read without
reluctance, nor will the labour always be rewarded by understanding
them. Cowley saw that such copyers were a servile race; he asserted his
liberty, and spread his wings so boldly that he left his authors. It was
reserved for Dryden to fix the limits of poetical liberty, and give us
just rules and examples of translation.

When languages are formed upon different principles, it is impossible
that the same modes of expression should always be elegant in both. While
they run on together, the closest translation may be considered as the
best; but when they divaricate, each must take its natural course. Where
correspondence cannot be obtained, it is necessary to be content with
something equivalent. "Translation, therefore," says Dryden, "is not so
loose as paraphrase, nor so close as metaphrase. "

All polished languages have different styles; the concise, the diffuse,
the lofty, and the humble. In the proper choice of style consists the
resemblance which Dryden principally exacts from the translator. He is to
exhibit his author's thoughts in such a dress of diction as the author
would have given them, had his language been English; rugged magnificence
is not to be softened; hyperbolical ostentation is not to be repressed;
nor sententious affectation to have its point blunted. A translator is to
be like his author; it is not his business to excel him.

The reasonableness of these rules seems sufficient for their vindication;
and the effects produced by observing them were so happy, that I know not
whether they were ever opposed, but by sir Edward Sherburne, a man whose
learning was greater than his powers of poetry, and who, being better
qualified to give the meaning than the spirit of Seneca, has introduced
his version of three tragedies by a defence of close translation. The
authority of Horace, which the new translators cited in defence of their
practice, he has, by a judicious explanation, taken fairly from them; but
reason wants not Horace to support it.

It seldom happens that all the necessary causes concur to any great
effect: will is wanting to power, or power to will, or both are impeded
by external obstructions. The exigencies in which Dryden was condemned
to pass his life, are reasonably supposed to have blasted his genius,
to have driven out his works in a state of immaturity, and to have
intercepted the full-blown elegance, which longer growth would have
supplied.

Poverty, like other rigid powers, is sometimes too hastily accused. If
the excellence of Dryden's works was lessened by his indigence, their
number was increased; and I know not how it will be proved, that if he
had written less he would have written better; or that, indeed, he would
have undergone the toil of an author, if he had not been solicited by
something more pressing than the love of praise.

But, as is said by his Sebastian,

What had been is unknown; what is, appears.

We know that Dryden's several productions were so many successive
expedients for his support; his plays were, therefore, often borrowed;
and his poems were almost all occasional.

In an occasional performance no height of excellence can be expected
from any mind, however fertile in itself, and however stored with
acquisitions. He whose work is general and arbitrary has the choice of
his matter, and takes that which his inclination and his studies have
best qualified him to display and decorate. He is at liberty to delay his
publication till he has satisfied his friends and himself, till he has
reformed his first thoughts by subsequent examination, and polished away
those faults which the precipitance of ardent composition is likely to
leave behind it. Virgil is related to have poured out a great number of
lines in the morning, and to have passed the day in reducing them to
fewer.

The occasional poet is circumscribed by the narrowness of his subject.
Whatever can happen to man has happened so often, that little remains
for fancy or invention. We have been all born; we have most of us been
married; and so many have died before us, that our deaths can supply
but few materials for a poet. In the fate of princes the publick has an
interest; and what happens to them of good or evil, the poets have always
considered as business for the muse. But after so many inauguratory
gratulations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he must be highly
favoured by nature, or by fortune, who says any thing not said before.
Even war and conquest, however splendid, suggest no new images; the
triumphal chariot of a victorious monarch can be decked only with those
ornaments that have graced his predecessors.

Not only matter but time is wanting. The poem must not be delayed till
the occasion is forgotten. The lucky moments of animated imagination
cannot be attended; elegancies and illustrations cannot be multiplied
by gradual accumulation; the composition must be despatched, while
conversation is yet busy, and admiration fresh; and haste is to be
made, lest some other event should lay hold upon mankind. Occasional
compositions may, however, secure to a writer the praise both of learning
and facility; for they cannot be the effect of long study, and must be
furnished immediately from the treasures of the mind.

The death of Cromwell was the first publick event which called forth
Dryden's poetical powers. His heroick stanzas have beauties and defects;
the thoughts are vigorous, and, though not always proper, show a mind
replete with ideas; the numbers are smooth; and the diction, if not
altogether correct, is elegant and easy.

Davenant was, perhaps, at this time, his favourite author, though
Gondibert never appears to have been popular; and from Davenant he
learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately
rhymed.

Dryden very early formed his versification; there are in this early
production no traces of Donne's or Jonson's ruggedness; but he did not so
soon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verses on
the restoration, he says of the king's exile:

He, toss'd by fate,
Could taste no sweets of youth's desir'd age,
But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

And afterwards, to show how virtue and wisdom are increased by adversity,
he makes this remark:

Well might the ancient poets then confer
On night the honour'd name of counsellor:
Since, struck with rays of prosperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.

His praise of Monk's dexterity comprises such a cluster of thoughts
unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be easily found:

'Twas Monk, whom providence design'd to loose
Those real bonds false freedom did impose.
The blessed saints that watch'd this turning scene
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To see small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.

Thus pencils can by one slight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue.
As fancy frames for fancy to subdue;
But, when ourselves to action we betake,
It shuns the mint like gold that chymists make:
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we see!
Man's architect distinctly did ordain
The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits spirits to dispense
The springs of motion from the seat of sense:
'Twas not the hasty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wise delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play awhile upon the hook.
Our healthful food the stomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it straight doth crush.
Wise leeches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude;
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,
Till some safe crisis authorize their skill.

He had not yet learned, indeed he never learned well, to forbear the
improper use of mythology. After having rewarded the heathen deities for
their care,

With Alga who the sacred altar strows?
To all the seagods Charles an offering owes;
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain;
A ram to you, ye tempests of the main.

He tells us, in the language of religion,

Pray'r storm'd the skies, and ravish'd Charles from thence,
As heav'n itself is took by violence.

And afterwards mentions one of the most awful passages of sacred history.

Other conceits there are, too curious to be quite omitted; as,

For by example most we sinn'd before,
And, glass-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore.
How far he was yet from thinking it necessary to found his sentiments on
nature, appears from the extravagance of his fictions and hyperboles:

The winds, that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their straiten'd lungs.

It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you;
The land returns, and in the white it wears
The marks of penitence and sorrow bears.

I know not whether this fancy, however little be its value, was not
borrowed. A French poet read to Malherbe some verses, in which he
represents France as moving out of its place to receive the king: "Though
this," said Malherbe, "was in my time, I do not remember it. "

His poem on the Coronation has a more even tenour of thought. Some lines
deserve to be quoted:

You have already quench'd sedition's brand;
And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the land;
The jealous sects that durst not trust their cause
So far from their own will as to the laws,
Him for their umpire and their synod take,
And their appeal alone to Caesar make.

Here may be found one particle of that old versification, of which, I
believe, in all his works, there is not another:

Nor is it duty, or our hope alone,
Creates that joy, but full _fruition_.

In the verses to the lord chancellor Clarendon, two years afterwards, is
a conceit so hopeless at the first view, that few would have attempted
it; and so successfully laboured, that though, at last, it gives the
reader more perplexity than pleasure, and seems hardly worth the study
that it costs, yet it must be valued as a proof of a mind at once subtile
and comprehensive:

In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth seems join'd unto the sky;
So in this hemisphere our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you:
Our sight is limited where you are join'd,
And beyond that no farther heaven can find.
So well your virtues do with his agree,
That, though your orbs of different greatness be,
Yet both are for each other's use dispos'd,
His to enclose, and yours to be enclos'd.
Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.

The comparison of the chancellor to the Indies leaves all resemblance too
far behind it:

And as the Indies were not found before
Those rich perfumes which from the happy shore
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,
Whose guilty sweetness first their world betray'd;
So by your counsels we are brought to view
A new and undiscover'd world in you.

There is another comparison, for there is little else in the poem, of
which, though, perhaps, it cannot be explained into plain prosaick
meaning, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives
its obscurity, for its magnificence:

How strangely active are the arts of peace,
Whose restless motions less than wars do cease:
Peace is not freed from labour, but from noise;
And war more force, but not more pains employs.
Such is the mighty swiftness of your mind,
That, like the earth's, it leaves our sense behind,
While you so smoothly turn and roll our sphere,
That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For as in nature's swiftness, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All seems at rest to the deluded eye,
Mov'd by the soul of the same harmony:
So, carry'd on by your unwearied care,
We rest in peace, and yet in motion share.

To this succeed four lines, which, perhaps, afford Dryden's first attempt
at those penetrating remarks on human nature, for which he seems to have
been peculiarly formed:

Let envy then those crimes within you see,
From which the happy never must be free;
Envy that does with misery reside,
The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.

Into this poem he seems to have collected all his powers; and after this
he did not often bring upon his anvil such stubborn and unmalleable
thoughts; but, as a specimen of his abilities to unite the most
unsociable matter, he has concluded with lines, of which I think not
myself obliged to tell the meaning:

Yet unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but seems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heav'nly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it:
And still it shall without a weight increase,
Like this new year, whose motions never cease.
For since the glorious course you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the sun,
It must both weightless and immortal prove,
Because the centre of it is above.

In the Annus Mirabilis he returned to the quatrain, which from that time
he totally quitted, perhaps from experience of its inconvenience, for he
complains of its difficulty. This is one of his greatest attempts. He
had subjects equal to his abilities, a great naval war, and the fire
of London. Battles have always been described in heroick poetry; but a
seafight and artillery had yet something of novelty. New arts are long in
the world before poets describe them; for they borrow every thing from
their predecessors, and commonly derive very little from nature, or from
life. Boileau was the first French writer that had ever hazarded in verse
the mention of modern war, or the effects of gunpowder. We, who are less
afraid of novelty, had already possession of those dreadful images:
Waller had described a seafight. Milton had not yet transferred the
invention of firearms to the rebellious angels.

This poem is written with great diligence, yet does not fully answer the
expectation raised by such subjects and such a writer. With the stanza
of Davenant, he has sometimes his vein of parenthesis, and incidental
disquisition, and stops his narrative for a wise remark.

The general fault is, that he affords more sentiment than description,
and does not so much impress scenes upon the fancy, as deduce
consequences and make comparisons.

The initial stanzas have rather too much resemblance to the first lines
of Waller's poem on the War with Spain; perhaps such a beginning is
natural, and could not be avoided without affectation. Both Waller and
Dryden might take their hint from the poem on the civil war of Rome:
"Orbem jam totum," &c.

Of the king collecting his navy, he says,

It seems, as ev'ry ship their sov'reign knows,
His awful summons they so soon obey:
So hear the scaly herds when Proteus blows,
And so to pasture follow through the sea.

It would not be hard to believe that Dryden had written the two first
lines seriously, and that some wag had added the two latter in burlesque.
Who would expect the lines that immediately follow, which are, indeed,
perhaps indecently hyperbolical, but certainly in a mode totally
different:

To see this fleet upon the ocean move,
Angels drew wide the curtains of the skies;
And heav'n, as if there wanted lights above,
For tapers made two glaring comets rise.

The description of the attempt at Bergen will afford a very complete
specimen of the descriptions in this poem:

And now approach'd their fleet from India, fraught
With all the riches of the rising sun:
And precious sand from southern climates brought,
The fatal regions where the war begun.

Like hunted castors, conscious of their store,
Their waylaid wealth to Norway's coast they bring:
Then first the north's cold bosom spices bore,
And winter brooded on the eastern spring.

By the rich scent we found our perfum'd prey,
Which, flank'd with rocks, did close in covert lie;
And round about their murd'ring cannon lay,
At once to threaten and invite the eye.

Fiercer than cannon, and than rocks more hard,
The English undertake th' unequal war;
Sev'n ships alone, by which the port is barr'd,
Besiege the Indies, and all Denmark dare.

These fight like husbands, but like lovers those;
These fain would keep, and those more fain enjoy;
And to such height their frantick passion grows,
That what both love, both hazard to destroy:

Amidst whole heaps of spices lights a ball,
And now their odours arm'd against them fly:
Some preciously by shatter'd porc'lain fall,
And some by aromatick splinters die.

And though by tempests of the prize bereft,
In heav'n's inclemency some ease we find;
Our foes we vanquish'd by our valour left,
And only yielded to the seas and wind.

In this manner is the sublime too often mingled with the ridiculous.
The Dutch seek a shelter for a wealthy fleet: this, surely, needed no
illustration; yet they must fly, not like all the rest of mankind on the
same occasion, but "like hunted castors;" and they might with strict
propriety be hunted; for we winded them by our noses--their _perfumes_
betrayed them. The _husband_ and the _lover_, though of more dignity than
the castor, are images too domestick to mingle properly with the horrours
of war. The two quatrains that follow are worthy of the author. The
account of the different sensations with which the two fleets retired,
when the night parted them, is one of the fairest flowers of English
poetry:

The night comes on, we eager to pursue
The combat still, and they asham'd to leave:
Till the last streaks of dying day withdrew,
And doubtful moonlight did our rage deceive.

In th' English fleet each ship resounds with joy,
And loud applause of their great leader's fame:
In fiery dreams the Dutch they still destroy,
And, slumb'ring, smile at the imagin'd flame.

Not so the Holland fleet, who, tir'd and done,
Stretch'd on their decks like weary oxen lie;
Faint sweats all down their mighty members run,
(Vast bulks, which little souls but ill supply. )

In dreams they fearful precipices tread,
Or, shipwreck'd, labour to some distant shore;
Or, in dark churches, walk among the dead:
They wake with horrour, and dare sleep no more.

It is a general rule in poetry, that all appropriated terms of art should
be sunk in general expressions, because poetry is to speak an universal
language. This rule is still stronger with regard to arts not liberal, or
confined to few, and, therefore, far removed from common knowledge; and
of this kind, certainly, is technical navigation. Yet Dryden was of
opinion, that a seafight ought to be described in the nautical language;
"and certainly," says he, "as those, who in a logical disputation keep to
general terms, would hide a fallacy, so those who do it in any poetical
description would veil their ignorance. "

Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience, at last, we learn as
well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem
to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock:

So here some pick out bullets from the side,
Some drive old _okum_ through each _seam_ and rift;
Their left hand does the _calking-iron_ guide,
The rattling _mallet_ with the right they lift.

With boiling pitch another near at hand
(From friendly Sweden brought) the _seams in-slops_:
Which, well-laid o'er, the salt sea-waves withstand,
And shake them from the rising beak in drops.

Some the _gall'd_ ropes with dauby _marling_ bind,
Or sear-cloth masts with strong _tarpawling_ coats;
To try new _shrouds_ one mounts into the wind,
And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish
away[121].

His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his
prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal
Society, then newly instituted, may be considered as an example seldom
equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me discontented; he says, that, by the help of
the philosophers,

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,
By which remotest regions are allied.

Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a more exact measure of
longitude. " It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have
laboured science into poetry, and have shown, by explaining longitude,
that verse did not refuse the ideas of philosophy.

His description of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a
mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city,
with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the most dreadful
spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to
raise little emotion in the breast of the poet; he watches the flame
coolly from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a simile,
till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a speech, rather
tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progress of the
fire.

There are, however, in this part some passages that deserve attention; as
in the beginning:

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,
And luxury, more late, asleep were laid;
All was the night's, and in her silent reign
No sound the rest of nature did invade
In this deep quiet----

The expression, "all was the night's," is taken from Seneca, who remarks
on Virgil's line,

Omnia noctis erant, placida composta quiete,

that he might have concluded better,

Omnia noctis erant.

The following quatrain is vigorous and animated:

The ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,
With hold fanatick spectres to rejoice;
About the fire into a dance they bend,
And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which shall be made in the new city is
elegant and poetical, and, with an event which poets cannot always boast,
has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a simile that might
have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not yet fully to have formed his
versification, or settled his system of propriety.

From this time he addicted himself almost wholly to the stage, "to
which," says he, "my genius never much inclined me," merely as the most
profitable market for poetry. By writing tragedies in rhyme, he continued
to improve his diction and his numbers. According to the opinion of
Harte, who had studied his works with great attention, he settled his
principles of versification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng
Zebe; and, according to his own account of the short time in which he
wrote Tyrannick Love, and the State of Innocence, he soon obtained the
full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.

Rhyme has been so long banished from the theatre, that we know not its
effect upon the passions of an audience; but it has this convenience,
that sentences stand more independent on each other, and striking
passages are, therefore, easily selected and retained. Thus the
description of night in the Indian Emperor, and the rise and fall of
empire in the Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any
lines in All for Love, or Don Sebastian.

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.