He had taught the barbarians how to conquer him; and Elkanah Settle, alone, had produced a tragedy, which was quite as bombastic, and rather more popular, than his own.* It was time, therefore, to change his system of tactics; and, in order to go as contrary as possible from his enemies, he resolved thenceforward to follow nature. Shakspeare now became a favourite: Otway was no longer treated

* Dr. Johnson_pronounced a dogma, in this behalf, which Mr. Scott has thought worthy of repetition. Let it be remembered (he says) that minds are not levelled in their powers but where they are first levelled in their desires.' This is making the vigour of the bow depend upon the direction of the shaft; and though it may be true of a man's performances, we do not see how it can apply to his powers. But, even if the remark were rigorously correct, it would create no distinction in favour of either party;-for, if Dry. den's powers would have been greater, had his desires been more exalted, by what rule of criticism, must the same measure of charity be denied to Settle? We are inclined to think, indeed, that, if a succession of untoward circumstances had not cast the latter below all power of emulation, he might have merited, on more than one account, the hypothetical epitaph of Johnson ;-Here lies the Rival and Antagonist of Dryden! Do these lines, for instance, deserve to be abused in such as are immediately subjoined?

How finely would the sparks be caught to-day,
Should a Whig poet write a Tory play,
And you, possessed with rage before, should send
Your random shot abroad, and maul a friend?
For you, we find, too often hiss and clap,

Just as you live, speak, think, and fight-by hap.
And poets, we all know, can change, like you,
And are alone to their own interests true;
Can write against all sense, nay even their own:
The vehicle called pension makes it down.
No fear of cudgels, when there's hope of bread;
A well filled paunch forgets a broken head.

Settle.

In fire-works give him leave to vent his spite,
Those are the only serpents he can write;
The height of his ambition is, we know,
To be the master of a puppet-show;

On that one stage his works may yet appear,
And a month's harvest keeps him all the year.
Dryden.

with contempt; and the following manifesto, as a prologue to Arung Zebe, announced the new order of things.

Our author, by experience, finds it true,

"Tis much more hard to please himself than you:
And, out of no feigned modesty, this day
Dawns his laborious trifle of play:

Not that it's worse than what before he writ,

But he has now another taste of wit;

And, to confess a truth, though out of time,
Grows weary of his long-loved mistress, Rhime.
Passion's too fierce to be in fetters bound,
And nature flies him like enchanted ground:
What verse can do, he has performed in this,
Which he presumes the most correct of his;
But, spite of all his pride, a secret shame
Invades his breast at Shakspeare's sacred name :
Awed, when he hears his godlike Romans rage,
He, in a just despair, would quit the stage;
And, to an age less polished, more unskilled,
Does, with disdain, the foremost honours yield.

But, notwithstanding this seeming penitence of confession, our author would never admit, that his conversion to Nature and Shakspeare was effected by any arguments from his antagonists; and we cannot but admire the ingenuity of an acknowledgment, which was rendered so completely nugatory, not only by the very play, to which it was a prologue, but by the covert reservation of the author, that the audience would, after all, be much easier 'pleased' with his old taste, than his new.' Indeed, with his present sentiments, he despaired of writing any thing, which they would tolerate; and he accordingly began to look about him, for employment in some poetical work more congenial to his powers. If I must be condemned to rhyme, (says he, to the earl of Musgrave, in the dedication of Arung Zebe,) I should find some ease by my change of punishment. I desire to be no longer the

Sisyphus of the stage; to roll up a stone with endless labour, which, to follow the proverb, gathers no moss, and which is perpetually falling down again. I never thought myself fit for an employment, where many of my predecessors have excelled me in all kinds; and some of my cotemporaries, even in my own partial judgment, have outdone me in comedy.' He then hopes to make some amends for his ill plays, by an heroic poem;' throws out a mysterious hint at the subject;* and, after reminding the earl of Augustus and Macenas, concludes by saying,For my own part, I am satisfied to have offered the design; and it may be to the advantage of my reputation to have it refused.' We are not told, that his grace ever took the hint; and it is certain, that our author enjoyed all the advantage' of having his 'design refused.'

He now reverted to the drama;† but, soon after,

* It was the adventures of King Arthur; and it is amusing to see Dryden valuing himself upon the first suggestion of a design, which had been entertained by two, at least, of his predecessors. In Drummond's notes of a conversation between himself and Jonson, there is the following passage: He (Jonson) said there was no such ground for an epic poem as King Arthur's fortunes, and that Sir Philip Sidney had an intention to have transferred all his Arcadia to the stories of King Arthur.' Biog. Britt. A. 2785. W. 2783. At the instance of Milton, his nephew, Edward Phillips, became the editor of Drummond's works; and it was probably in consequence of the sentence just quoted, that, when the former, in his Mansus, was enumerating the subjects fit for epic poetry, he exclaims:

O mihi si mea sors talem concedat amicum,
Phœbæos decorâsse viròs qui tam benè nôrit,
Si quandò indigenas revocabo in carmina reges,
Arturùmque etiam sub terris bella moventem!

+ The State of Innocence, written after this return, was an attempt to convert Paradise Lost into a rhyming tragedy; and when Dryden communicated his design to Milton, he is said to have answered, Aye, you may tag my verses if you will.' Scott, p. 170. Godw, Ph. App vol. i. p. 339. Either this answer made an ineffacable impression on Dryden, or tag was, in his time, a well known technical word; for, in a translation of a lampoon of Perseus, against Nero, our poet has used almost the very language of Milton:

turned satirist. And perhaps he could not have made a better choice. The argumentative turn of his mind could here be employed with peculiar effect: it added the weight of reason to the keenness of invective; and his very first effort was crowned with a success, which perhaps he scarcely durst to anticipate. The delinquents, whom he struck, were not such transgressors of good taste, as had offended every body in general,-but no person in particular. They had singled out Dryden as the object of especial abuse; and he took the field against them, therefore, not so much to redress the public wrongs, as to revenge a private quarrel. He had every motive to exercise his utmost vigour. He could not have written with such force and vehemence against mere stupidity in the abstract. It was personal antipathy that made him tip his shafts with venom, and draw them to the head.

There is one quality in Dryden's satire, which, we believe, is not to be found in any poet before him, whether ancient or modern. It is that of representing his enemies as actuated by an inverted cu pidity of what all other men would be the most solicitous to shun;-as claiming a sort of negative birthright to stupidity and dulness. It is idle to pretend, that any person could be seriously ambitious of reigning absolute through all the realms of Nonsense;' of aspiring to the throne of Dulness; or of priding himself upon being the illustrious Conqueror of Common-sense.' Yet, to suppose, that unassisted nature could never give birth to such profound bathos as appeared in the poetry of his enemies, and that it must, therefore, have been produced by the prepense stupidity of the authors; that it was not what they were unable to help,-but

But to raw numbers and unfinish'd verse,

Sweet sound is added now, to make it terse,
'Tis tag'd with rhyme, &c.

the very thing for which they were labouring;—not the effect of innate dulness,-but the result of no small ingenuity;-was surely an original, and a most effectual method of throwing contempt upon an antagonist. And it was the more effectual, because it formed at once, the sword, and the buckler, of the author. When Dryden's enemies accused him, in turn, of being a blockhead, he did not pretend to deny it; but alleged, that it was both fair and necessary to treat an enemy with his own weapons,— to oppose dulness to dulness, and turn blockhead in self-defence.

Nor was it in his poetry alone, that this spirit of jovial contempt was displayed. There is not, perhaps, in all his writings a more spirited and satirical passage, than the following invective against Melbourne: Melbourne, who is in orders, (says he, in the preface to the Fables,) pretends among the rest this quarrel to me, that I have fallen foul on priesthood: If I have, I am only to ask pardon of good priests, and am afraid his part of the reparation will come to little. Let him be satisfied, that he shall not be able to force himself on me as an adversary. I contemn him too much to enter into competition with him. His own translations of Virgil have answered his criticisms on mine. If, as they say, he has declared in print, he prefers the version of Ogilby to mine, the world has made him the same compliment; for it is agreed on all hands, that he writes even below Ogilby. That, you will say, is not easily to be done; but what cannot Melbourne bring about? I am satisfied, however, that, while he and I live together, I shall not be thought the worst poet of the age. It looks as if I had desired him underhand to write so ill against me; but upon my honest word, I have not bribed him to do me this service, and am wholly guiltless of his pamphlet. It is true, I should be glad to persuade