Ver 23, 24.

"Inventor, Pallas, of the fattening 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→→→→→

Pity, with me, poor husbandren'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 abettors, and of whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design were ashamed of his insolence.

When admiration had subsided, the transla

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?tion was more coolly examined, and found, like 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."

"The scorpiou ready to receive thy laws.

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 "Eneid," 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 slight regard with which it was treated, he had the "Eneid," to which, notwithstanding the afterwards perseverance enough to add the "Eclogues" and "Georgics." His book may continue in 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. 1 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 critic 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

No, he would not then have gotten out of his mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are

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 blush'd at: but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends by his better lines:

"O wheresce'er thou art, from thence incline, Aud grant assistance to my bold design;

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.

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 Shakspeare 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 renova tion 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, which upon this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by Dry

DRYDEN.

den, 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 Dry-
den has given it in the general Preface, and in
a poetical Dedication, a piece where his original
fondness of remote conceits seems to have re-
vived.

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 Killegrew," it may be pronounced perhaps superior on 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 music of "Ti-
motheus," 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 intellec-
tual operations was rather strong reason than
quick sensibility. Upon all occasions that were
presented, he studied rather than felt, and pro-
duced 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 compli-
cated 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 every 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
corresponding kindness; such Love as shuts out
all other interest, the Love of the Golden Age,
was too soft and subtle to put his faculties in
motion. He hardly conceived it but in its tur-
bulent 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 excel-
lence, not often pathetic; and had so little sen-
sibility of the power of effusions purely natural,
that he did not esteem them in others: simpli-
city 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 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 dispu "verbatation, thoughts flowed in on either side; he was now no longer at a loss; he had always objections and solutions at command; que provisam rem"-gave 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 eccentric 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 daming sword above them to display,
All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

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,

And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of even when I wrote them." There is surely rea

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 many 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' expement before you try,
I'll show you rst 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.

}

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;

}

son 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 pedantic 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 optics view'd;
Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.

He had heard of reversing a telescope, and un-
luckily reverses the object.

When

He is sometimes unexpectedly mean. 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 water 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.

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

Than the light Monsieur the grave Don outweigh'd;
No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'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 lanOf the images which the two following cita-guage has incorporated or retained. They contions afford, the first is elegant, the second mag-tinue only where they stood first, perpetual nificent; whether either be just, let the reader judge:

Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.

What precious drops are these,

Which silently each other's track pursue,
Bright as young diamonds ir. their infant dew!

* 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." Spec. No. 615.

-J. B

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 He knew to whom he should be opposed. He as they were, with what they might be made. had more music than Waller, more vigour than Denham, 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,

1

DRYDEN.

while there was no name above his own, was | sally approved. Swift always censured them, 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 majestic 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 "Eneid" 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 "Eneid" will exemplify this measure:

When Asia's state was overthrown and Priam's kingdom stout,

All guiltless, by the pow'r of gods above was rooted out.

As these lines had their break, or casura,
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 lyric measures: as,

Ms 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 mea-
sures of twelve and fourteen syllables were in-
terchanged with one another. Cowley was the
first that inserted the Alexandrine at pleasure
among the heroic lines of ten syllables, and from
him Dryden professes to have adopted it.*

The triplet and Alexandrine are not univer

This is an error. The Alexandrine inserted among heroic lines of ten syllables is found in many of the writers of Queen Elizabeth's reign. It will be sufficient

'But till some such regulation can be formed, wish them still to be retained in their present state. They are sometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that Dryden was The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, too liberal, and Pope too sparing in their use. and he valued himself for his readiness in finding It is the common practice of our poets to end them; but he is sometimes open to objection. 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

use of the triplet:
to mention Hall, who has already been quoted for the
As though the staring world hang'd on his sleeve,
Whene'er he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to
Hall's Sat. Book i. Sat. 7.
grieve.
Take another instance :

For shame! or better write or Labeo write none.

every mode of poetry than any other English | Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer his writer could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with such a 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 were 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 reliquil. He found it brick, and he left it marble.

The invocation before the "Georgics" 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, Mecenas! 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 man 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-nyinphs 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 Caan Isle maintains!
Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divine,
E er to improve thy M nalus inc ine,
Leave thy Lyc an 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;
Ye, who new plants fr m unknown lands supply.
And with condensing clouds obscure the sky,
And drop them softly thence in fruitful showers;
Assist my enterprise, ye gentl powers!

And thou, great Cesar! 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 ali the boundless ocean sway,
And seamen only to thyself shall pray;
Thule, the fairest 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 watry field:
Whether thou It 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 arm 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 prayers 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.

"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 public,
that no particle of Dryden may be lost.
"That we may less wonder why pity and
terror are not now the only springs on which
our tragedies move, and that Shakspeare may
be more excused, Rapin confesses that the
French tragedies now all run on the tendre,
and gives the reason, because love is the passior
which most predominates in our souls, and that
therefore the passions represented become insi-
pid, 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
Shakspeare's passions is more from the excel-
lence of the words and thoughts, than the just-
ness 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 Shakspeare's.'

"The parts of a poem, tragic or heroic, 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. a

"4. The thoughts which express the manners. "5. The words which express those thoughts. "In the last of these, Homer excels Virgil: Virgil all the other ancient poets; and Shakspeare all modern poets.

"For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought to have a beginning, middle, and 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 terror 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 a 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.

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