from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately rhymed.

Dryden very early formed his verfification; there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonfon's ruggedness; but he did not fo foon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verfes on the Restoration, he fays of the King's exile,

He, tofs'd by Fate

Could tafte no fweets of youth's defir'd age,

But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

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

Well might the antient poets then confer
On Night the honour'd name of counsellor,

Since, ftruck with rays of profperous fortune blind,

We light alone in dark afflictions find.

His praife of Monk's dexterity comprises such a clufter of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be eafily found:

'Twas Monk, whom Providence defign'd to loofe
Thofe real bonds falfe freedom did impofe.
The bleffed faints that watch'd this turning fcene
Did from their ftars with joyful wonder lean,
To fee fmall clues draw vafteft weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order ftrong.
Thus pencils can by one flight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With eafe fuch fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames, for fancy to fubdue:
But, when ourselves to action we betake,
It huns the mint like gold that chemists make.
How hard was then his tafk, at once to be
What in the body natural we fee!

Man's Architect diftinctly did ordain

The charge of mufcles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewlefs conduits fpirits to difpenfe.
The fprings of motion from the feat of sense;
"Twas not the hafty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wife delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he ftrook,
Would let them play awhile upon the hook.
Our healthful food the ftomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it strait doth crush,
Wife leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pairs pronounce the humours crude
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,

Till fome fafe crifis authorize their skill.

After having re

He had not yet learned, indeed he never learned well, to forbear the improper use of mythology. warded the Heathen deities for their care,

With Alga who the facred altar ftrows?
To all the fea-gods Charles an offering owes ;
A bull to thee, Portunus, thall be slain;

A ram to you, ye Tempests of the Main.

He tells, us in the language of Religion,

Prayer ftorm'd the fkies, and ravifh'd Charles from thence, As Heaven itself is took by violence.

And afterwards mentions one of the moft awful paffages of Sacred History.

as,

Oer conceits there are too curious to be quite omitted;

For by example moft we finn'd before,

And, glafs-like, clearness mix'd with frailty bore.

How far he was yet from thinking it neceffary to found his fentiments 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 ftraiten'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 forrow bears.

I know not whether this fancy, however little be its value, was not borrowed. A French poet read to Malherbe fome verses, in which he reprefents France as moving out of its place to receive the king. "Though this," faid Malherbe, 66 was in my time, I do not remember it."

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

You have already quench'd fedition's brand;
And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the land;
The jealous fects that durft not truft their cause,
So far from their own will as to the laws,

Him for their umpire and their fynod take,

And their appeal alone to Cæfar make.

Here may be found one particle of that old verfification, 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 fo hopeless at the first view, that few would have attempted it; and fo fuccefsfully laboured, that though at laft it gives the reader more perplexity than pleafure, and feems hardly worth the ftudy that it costs, yet it must be valued as a proof of a mind at once fubtle and comprehenfive;

In open profpect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth feems join'd unto the sky:

So in this hemifphere our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you:
Our fight 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 ufe difpos'd,
His to enclofe, 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 refemblance too far behind it:

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

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

How ftrangely active are the arts of peace,
Whose restlefs motions lefs than wars do cease!
Peace is not freed from labour, but from noife;
And war more force, but not more pains employs.
Such is the mighty fwiftnefs of your mind,
That, like the Earth's, it leaves our fenfe behind;
While you fo fmoothly turn and roll our sphere,

That rapid motion does but rest appear.
For as in nature's fwiftnefs, with the throng
Of flying orbs while ours is borne along,
All feems at reft to the deluded eye,
Mov'd by the foul of the fame harmony:
So, carry'd on by your unwearied care,
We reft in peace, and yet in motion share.

To this fucceed 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:

fee,

Let envy then thofe crimes within you
From which the happy never must be free;
Envy, that does with mifery refide,

The joy and the revenge of ruin'd pride.

Into this poem he feems 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 unfociable matter, he has conclu ded with lines of which I think not myself obliged to tell the meaning.

Yet unimpair'd with labours, or with time,
Your age but feems to a new youth to climb.
Thus heavenly bodies do our time beget,
And measure change, but share no part of it:
And still it fhall without a weight increase,
Like this new year, whofe motions never cease.
For fince the glorious courfe you have begun
Is led by Charles, as that is by the fun,

It muft both weightlefs 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 feafight and artillery had yet fomething of novelty. New arts are long in the world before poets describe them; for they borrow every thing from their predeceffors, and commonly derive very little from nature or from life. Boileau was the firft French writer that had ever hazarded in verfe the mention of modern war, or the effects of gunpowder. We, who