words, the rhythm and cadence of the line, and the manner in which the images are presented, write "This is a poet, and probably a great poet," across them, and that he would be right in doing so. When such a critic, in reading the works of the author of these lines, finds that the same touch is, if not invariably, almost always present; that in the handling of the most unpromising themes, the mots rayonnants, the mots de lumière are never lacking; that the suggested images of beauty never fail for long together; then he is justified in striking out the "probably" and writing "This is a great poet." If he tries to go further, and to range his great poets in order of merit, he will almost certainly fail. He cannot count up the beauties in one, and then the beauties in the other, and strike the balance accordingly. He can only say, "There is the faculty of producing those beauties; it is exercised under such conditions, and with such results, that there is no doubt of its being a native and resident faculty, not a mere casual inspiration of the moment; and this being so, I pronounce the man a poet, and a great one." This can be said of Dryden, as it can be said of Shelley, or Spenser, or Keats, to name only the great English poets who are most dissimilar to him in subject and in style. All beyond this is treacherous speculation. The critic quits the assistance of a plain and catholic theory of poetry, and developes all sorts of private judgments, and not improbably private crotchets. The ideas which this poet works on are more congenial to his ideas than the ideas which that poet works on; the dialect of one is softer to his ear than the dialect of another; very frequently some characteristic which has not the remotest connexion with his poetical merits or demerits makes the scale turn. Of only one poet can it be safely said that he is greater than the other great poets, for the reason that in Dryden's own words he is larger and more comprehensive than any of them. But with the exception of Shakespeare, the greatest poets in different styles are, in the eyes of a sound poetical criticism, very much on an equality. Dryden's peculiar gift, in which no poet of any language has surpassed him, is the faculty of treating any subject which he does treat poetically. His range is enormous, and wherever it is deficient, it is possible to see that external circumstances had to do with the apparent limitation. That the author of the tremendous satire of the political pieces should be the author of the exquisite lyrics scattered about the plays; that the special pleader of Religio Laici should be the taleteller of Palamon and Arcite, are things which, the more carefully I study other poets and their comparatively limited perfection, astonish me the more. My natural man may like Kubla Khan, or the Ode on a Grecian Urn, or the Ode on Intimations of Immortality, or O World! O Life! O Time! with an intenser liking than that which it feels for anything of Dryden's. But, that arises from the pure accident that I was born in the first half of the nineteenth century, and Dryden in the first half of the seventeenth. The whirligig of time has altered and is altering this relation between poet and reader in every generation. But what it cannot alter is the fact that the poetical virtue which is present in Dryden is the same poetical virtue that is present in Lucretius and in Eschylus, in Shelley and in Spenser, in Heine and in Hugo. INDEX. Absalom and Achitophel, 73-74, | Chaucer, 132-134, 135, 153, 154, 77, 80-84, 88-90, 92, 96, 100, 109, 112, 136, 180 Addison, 56, 105, 128, 130 Alexander's Feast, 169 Annus Mirabilis, 28, 33-37, 109 Castlemaine, Lady, 28 155, 158-160, 163, 174 Churchill, 76 Clarendon, Lord, 75, 121, 122, 130; poem to, 28, 32 Cleveland, Duchess of, 70 Collier, Jeremy, 119, 156-157, 166 Creed, Mrs. (Dryden's cousin), 5, Cromwell, stanzas on death of, Crowne, John, 52, 53-54, 59, 69, Curll, Edmund, bookseller, 177- Davenant, Sir W., 13, 17, 19, 34, 40, 44, 51, 65, 67, 118 Denham Court, seat of Sir William Charles II., 43, 72, 73, 84, 91, 92, Denham, Sir J., 7 101 Charleton, Dr., 28 Charlton, 3, 25, 33, 183 Diderot, 119 Donne, John, 15-16, 75 Dorset, Lord, 68, 113 175 Draghi, the composer, 110 Drayton, the poet, 172 Dryden, Erasmus (father), 2, 4, 9, Dryden, Erasmus (son), 66, 179 152; the Fables, 153-173; As a writer: conceits, 11, 18, Fables, the, 115, 128, 131, 158-172, Fetter Lane, 66-67 note Hastings, Lord, elegy on, 7-8, 16, Heroic play, origin of, 19 Hind and the Panther, 79-80, 92, Howell, 67 Hudson, Dr., 14 Hyde, Anne, 107 Hyde, Lawrence, 52, 116 James II., 91, 92, 101, 104, 106 Juvenal, 128, 144-145 Keats, 191 Painting (Dufresnoy's), Art of, 152 Pickering, Mary (Dryden's mother), Killegrew, Mrs. Anne, Ode to the Pickering, Rev. Henry, 1 Memory of, 94-95, 151 League, History of the, 128 Lucian, Life of, 152 Macaulay, Lord, 64, 68, 103, 149, Malone, 67 Morris, William, 171 Pickering, Sir Gilbert, 10, 12 Poetry, Metaphysical School of, 15-18 Pope, 77, 111, 146-147 Mulgrave, Lord, 68-70, 139, 146, Popish Plot, the, 24, 72, 81, 99 149, 182 Nene Valley, the, 3, 4, 183 Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, 110 Pordage, Samuel, 83, 85, 105 Queen Mary, 114 |