reasoning is always felt, but his thoughts follow each other in a natural order, according to the animated motions of his mind, in a flow of language so splendid and yet so familiar, that they seem to spring less from an effort of meditated art, than from the happiness of eloquent conversation.

As to the literary elements which mixed themselves in this vein of colloquial idiom, it does not appear that Dryden was greatly influenced by any existing models. He himself modestly ascribes some of his merit as a prose writer to the sermons of Tillotson, which indeed furnished him with good examples of the logical and lucid arrangement of thought. Yet, if Tillotson had never preached, it may be doubted whether there would have been any great difference in the style of Dryden. Such resemblance as may be observed between them is probably the result, less of conscious imitation of the one by the other, than of the necessity under which they each lay of addressing audiences in the language of daily use. It has also been supposed that Dryden borrowed much of his style from the French, an opinion, it appears, chiefly founded on the numerous words in his writings either taken directly, or ultimately derived, from that language. Many of these words, however, were merely used by him carelessly, after the court fashion of conversation; while others had obtained a footing in our literature long before he began to write. Doubtless he had read, and (as his idioms sometimes show) felt the influence of, Bossu and other French critics, but, while he acknowledged their supremacy in their own department of taste, he was far from surrendering his liberties into their hands. Louis XIV. encouraged critical principles that extended into literature the absolutism he had established in the system of his government, and in the manners of his court; his subjects submitted readily to the authority of "the ancients"; but the turbulent tides of English taste could not be checked by Aristotle's dams. Of this Dryden was well aware, and often opposed himself to the rules laid down by the French critics. Nor did he make any attempt to imitate their style, who, in their efforts after precision, aimed at purging their language of metaphor, and thus while they refined it into a perfect instrument of logic, deprived it necessarily of much individual life and character.

As far as he can be said to have looked to any literary model, Dryden followed an English tradition, the tendency of which was exactly opposite to the French. The style, which Lyly had first

made fashionable in the court of Elizabeth, had continued to affect the conversational idiom of polite society in each succeeding reign. In this style two characteristics predominate, verbal antithesis and metaphorical imagery; and though usage had greatly modified and softened their original harshness, both features of the parent "Euphues" may be plainly discerned in English prose long after the Restoration. They make a prominent figure in the writings of Dryden. Johnson indeed pronounces his clauses to be without studied balance,1 but his opinion is plainly ill-founded, for Dryden's style abounds with verbal oppositions though these are introduced naturally and with no appearance of effort—and even when the parts of his sentence are not formally weighed against each other, the rhythm is frequently determined by a subtle antithesis of thought. As to his employment of metaphor, the examples already cited from his Dedications show how freely he indulged in what may be called metaphysical Euphuism, when using the language of compliment. But the Euphuistic habit influences him in his more sober moods, and even his controversial passages are enriched with a profusion of images. It is true that in these he does not follow a conceit for its own sake, but—as in good architecture the ornament is intimately connected with the construction-uses metaphors and similes to illustrate, and even to strengthen, his arguments.

When, for example, he is told that, as a layman, he should not trespass on the ground of religion, he answers: “I pretend not to make myself a judge of faith in others, but only to make a confession of my own. I lay no unhallowed hand upon the ark, but wait on it, with the reverence that becomes me, at a distance." Ben Jonson has been charged with plagiarism. What signifies? says Dryden. "He has done his robberies so openly, that one may see he fears not to be taxed by any law. He invades authors like a monarch; and what would be theft in other poets is only victory in him." Shakespeare is accused of having wanted learning; Nay, replies the critic," he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature; he looked inwards, and found her there." His images are always happily adapted to their subject: "He is too much given to horse-play in his raillery," he says of Collier, "and comes to battle like a dictator from the plough." Speaking of the progress of refinement in comedy; "Gentlemen," he says, "will now be

VOL. III

1 Johnson's Life of Dryden.

L

entertained by the follies of each other; and though they allow Cobb and Tibb to speak properly, yet they are not much pleased with their tankard or with their rags." The fault of irregularity in writing is illustrated by a metaphor of homely force: "Others have no ear for verse, nor choice of words, nor distinction of thoughts; but mingle farthings with their gold to make up the sum."

Dryden's prose writings are almost always of an occasional character, and in this respect they want the dignity derived from moral purpose. Among those who succeeded him, Addison, in the next generation, used the essay as an instrument for improving national taste and manners, and a generation later Johnson made it the vehicle of dictatorial criticism. Both of them wrote in a spirit of independence which was foreign to Dryden, whose work, with the single exception of the Essay of Dramatic Poetry, was produced at the demand of patrons or publishers, and who is so far from seeking to rise above the conversation of his company, that, in the extravagance of his flattery, he too often forgets what is due to himself. For all that, no later prose writer can approach him in strength, freedom, and harmony of expression. In reading him, when at his best, we are reminded of his own description of Absalom:

"Whate'er he did, was done with so much ease,

In him alone 'twas natural to please."

The most skilful critic finds it sometimes hard to discriminate between the style of Addison and Steele; Johnson's style had many imitators; but no man could imitate the style of Dryden. Of no writer can it be more truly said, Le style c'est l'homme. Like the Socrates of Plato he runs before his argument as a ship under sail, and whatever be his subject of the moment, he suffuses it with all the glow and colour of his rich vocabulary. The coarse immorality of Charles II.'s Court, as he paints it, takes an air of grace and refinement. A few strokes of unequalled vigour place before us, with perfect discrimination, the varied characters of Shakespeare, Fletcher, and Jonson. Even in the midst of his servility he seems to be sustained by a sense of inward greatness, which allows him to speak to his readers with self-respect. Nothing can surpass the dignity of his attitude before Collier; his haughty disdain of Buckingham and the authors of the Rehearsal; his pathetic reference to his old age in the Postscript to the Eneis,

It is this twofold character which makes Dryden, whether in verse or prose, so interesting a figure in English literature. He occupies, as it were, an isthmus between two seas. In one direction he looks, not without experience, over the great imaginative ocean of Tudor and Stuart literature; in the other he seems to survey in thought the yet untravelled waters of the eighteenth century; the world of reason, judgment, science; the coming temper of Berkeley and Addison, of Burke and of Reynolds. As a playwright he is still the servant of the king. As a man of letters he is the client of noble patrons. He acknowledges with an excessive deference what is due to these; he knows how much of art and manners is derived from their authority; but he feels that their influence is on the wane. On the other hand, looking to the great unorganised forces of the coming time, he sees that the supreme court of appeal lies with the people. To this tribunal he submits his Preface to the Fables, his Versification of Chaucer, his Translation of the Eneid. He pays it the compliment of sincerity, which he withholds from the patrons whom he flatters. All the treasures of his memory and imagination are placed at the disposal of his audience. Yet in one respect he feels himself to be superior to his judges. He is addressing them as a man of genius, on whom they are dependent for their intellectual pleasures. No one, he is well aware, understands like himself how to blend the conversation of refined society with the language of literary tradition; he is acquainted, as none who listen to him can be, with the resources of their mother tongue. Hence he naturally adopts in his Prefaces a tone of dignified familiarity. His discourse is addressed to men who have shown themselves able to conduct a constitutional Revolution, and who are the masters of their own liberties; but it proceeds from one who has learned his manners, and formed his style, amid the arts, the splendour, and the experience of the old English Monarchy.

W. J. COURTHOPE.

A DEFENCE OF RHYME IN TRAGEDY

IT concerns me less than any, said Neander (seeing he had ended), to reply to this discourse; because when I should have proved, that verse may be natural in plays, yet I should always be ready to confess, that those which I have written in this kind come short of that perfection which is required. Yet since you are pleased I should undertake this province, I will do it, though with all imaginable respect and deference, both to that person from whom you have borrowed your strongest arguments, and to whose judgment, when I have said all, I finally submit. But before I proceed to answer your objections, I must first remember you, that I exclude all comedy from my defence; and next, that I deny not but blank verse may be also used; and content myself only to assert, that in serious plays, where the subject and characters are great, and the plot unmixed with mirth, which might allay or divert those concernments which are produced, rhyme is there as natural, and more effectual, than blank verse.

And now having laid down this as a foundation-to begin with Crites—I must crave leave to tell him, that some of his arguments against rhyme reach no further than, from the faults and defects of ill rhyme, to conclude against the use of it in general. May not I conclude against blank verse by the same reason? If the words of some poets, who write in it, are either ill-chosen or ill-placed (which makes not only rhyme, but all kinds of verse in any language unnatural), shall I, for their vicious affectation, condemn those excellent lines of Fletcher, which are written in that kind? Is there anything in rhyme more constrained than this line in blank verse?

"I heaven invoke, and strong resistance make;"

where you see both the clauses are placed unnaturally; that is, contrary to the common way of speaking, and that without the excuse of