gance of praife, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of fentiment, happy turns of language, and pleafing harmony of numbers, and all these raised to such a height as fcarcely can be found in any other English compofition. It is not, however, without faults. The original structure of the poem is defective: fome lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously li

centious.

The Medal, written upon the fame principles, but upon a narrower plan, gives lefs pleasure though it abounds with touches both of humourous and ferious fatire. The Threnodia is obviously defective in the irregularity of its metre. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity; it is neither magnificent nor pathetic. His elegiac ode, On the Death of Mrs. Killigrew, is among the beft in our language; the first part flows with a torrent of enthusiasm. All the ftanzas indeed are not equal. The Religio Laici is an example of the middle kind of writing. The fubject is rather argumentative than poetical; it is, however, a compofition of great excellence in its kind. The Hind and Pantber, the largest of all his original poems, exhibits the most correct fpecimen of his verfification. The parallel, however, is injudicious and incommodious. But when this conftitu tional abfurdity is forgiven, the poem must be confeffed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and enlivened by fallies of invective. In the poem, On the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adulation. His Mac-Flecknce is only inferior to the "Dunciad," confeffedly written in imitation of it, but upon a more extenfive plan. The general character of his version of Juvenal, will be given, when it is faid to preferve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The translation of Perfiar is written in an uniform mediocrity, without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious effect of the mind. His verfion of Virgil, his greatest and most laborious work, is pro nounced by Pope, "the most noble and fpirited tranflation in any language." The general opi nion is equally favourable. "Those who excel him," fays Dr. Felton, "where they obferve he hath failed, will fall below in a thousand inftances where he hath excelled." His Fables, the most perfect of his works, have not received, from Dr. Johnson, the commendation they deferve. Dry den was probably partial in setting the story of Palamon and Arcite on a level with the Æneid, yet. it merits great praife. The Flower and Leaf, paffed over by Dr. Johnson, is happily modernised the nineteen first lines, in particular, are delightful, and contain an incomparable sketch of the beauty of fpring. "It is to his Fables," fays Dr. Warton, "though written in his old age, that Dryden will owe his immortality, and among them particularly to Palamon and Arcite, Sigif munda and Guifcardo, and Theodore and Honoria. The warmth and melody of these pieces, have never been excelled in our language, I mean in rhyme." His Ode on St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the laft effort of his poetry, is the most unrivalled of his compofitions; it exhibits the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art, and is justly esteemed one of the most perfect in any language. The character of his Prologues, Epilogues, Songs, and fhorter Poems, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that "each of them, if he had written nothing else, would have entitled him to the preference and distinction of excelling in its kind."

Critics have often stated a comparison between Dryden and Pope, as poets of the fame order. The fubject has not been forgotten by Dr. Johnfon in his life of Pope. A long controverfy relative to the comparative merits of Dryden and Pope, has been carried on between Mifs Seward and Mr. Wefton, in the "Gentleman's Magazine" for 1789 and 1790. Much ingenuity and critical fkill are difplayed on both fides. Mifs Seward ftrenuously maintains the pretenfions of Pope, and Mr. Wefton fights with inextinguishable ardour in the cause of his favourite, Dryden.

Dr. Beattie's comparison of the verfification of Dryden and Pope merits particular attention. Dryden's verfe," fays that amiable and elegant writer," though often faulty, has a grace and a fpirit peculiar to itself. That of Pope is more correct, and perhaps, upon the whole, more harmonious, but it is in general more languid and lefs diverfified. Pope's numbers are fweet, but elaborate; and our fenfe of their energy is in fome degree interrupted by our attention to the ars

displayed in their contexture. Dryden's are more natural and free, and while they communicate their own fprightly motion to the spirits of the reader, hurry him along with a gentle and pleasing violence, without giving him time either to animadvert on their faults, or to analyse their beauties. Pope excels in folemnity of found; Dryden in an easy melody and boundless variety of rhyme. In this last respect, I think I could prove that he is superior to all other English poets, Milton himself not excepted. Till Dryden appeared, none of our writers in rhyme of the last century approached in any measure to the harmony of Spenfer and Fairfax. Of Waller, it can only be faid, that he is not harsh. Of Denham and Cowley, if a few couplets were struck out of their works, we could not fay fo much. But, in Dryden's hands, the English rhyming couplet affumed a new form, and feems hardly to be fufceptible of any farther improvement."

His poetical character is given by Dr. Johnson, with a fagacity of discrimination, and a felicity of expreffion, which far transcend all praise.

"In a general furvey of Dryden's labours," says that judicious and claffical critic," he appears to have a mind very comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compofitions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.

"The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason than quick fenfibility. Upon all occafions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced fentiments not such as nature enforces, but meditation fupplies. With the ample and elemental paffions, as they spring and operate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted, and seldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of fociety, and confufed in the tumults and agitations of life.

“He is therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic, and had fo little sensibility of the power of effufions purely natural, that he did not eflcem it in others. Simplicity 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 confefsed that in his play there was Nature, which is the chief beauty.

“The favourite exercise of his mind was ratiocination. Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring fallies of fentiment, 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 abfurdity, and hover over the abyfs of unideal vacancy.

"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 neceffity; but his subsequent neglect could hardly have any other cause than impatience of study.

"Some improvements had been already made in English numbers, but the full force of our language was not yet felt: the verfe that was fmooth, was commonly feeble. If Cowley had fometimes a finished line, he had it by chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the fonorous words; to vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diverfify the cadence, and yet preferve the fmoothness of his metre.

« Of Dryden's works it was faid by Pope, that " he could select from them better specimens of every mode of poetry, than any other English writer could fupply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with fuch 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 fentiments. By him we were taught "fapere et fari," to think naturally, and exprefs forcibly. Though Davies has reafoned in rhime before him, it may be perhaps maintained that he was the first who joined argument with poetry. He fhowed us the true bounds of a tanf lator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Auguftus, may be applied by an easy metapher to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble."

20

Most noble Haftings immaturely die;
The honour of his ancient family,
Beauty and learning thus together meet,
To bring a winding for a wedding fheet?
Muf virtue prove death's harbinger? must she,
With him expiring, feel mortality?

Is death, fin's wages, grace's now? fhall art
Make us more learned, only to depart?
If merit be disease; if virtue death;
To be good, not to be; who'd then bequeath
Himself to difcipline? who'd not esteem
Labour a crime? ftudy felf-murther deem?
Our noble youth now have pretence to be
Dances fecurely, ignorant healthfully.
Rare linguift, whole worth fpeaks itself, whofe
praife,

Though not his own, all tongues befides do raife:
Than whom great Alexander may seem less ;
Who conquer'd men, but not their languages.
In his mouth nations fpake; his tongue might be
Interpreter to Greece, France, Italy.

His native foil was the four parts o' th' earth;
All Europe was too narrow for his birth.
A young apoftle; and with reverence may
I fpeak it, infpir'd with gift of tongues, as they.
Mature gave him a child, what men in vain
Oft ftrive, by art though further'd, to obtain.
His body was an orb, his fublime foul

Lal move on virtue's, and on learning's pole :
Whafe regular motions better to our view,
Than Archimedes' fphere, the heavens did fhew.

VOL, VI.

Graces and virtues, languages and arts,
Beauty and learning fill'd up all the parts.
Heaven's gifts, which do like falling stars appear
Scatter'd in others; all, as in their sphere,
Were fix'd, conglobate in his foul; and thence
Shone through his body, with fweet influence,
Letting their glories fo on each limb fall,
The whole frame render'd was celestial.
Come, learned Ptolemy, and trial make,
If thou this hero's altitude canst take:
But that tranfcends thy fkill; thrice happy all,
Could we but prove thus astronomical.
Liv'd Tycho now, ftruck with this ray which fhone
He'd take his aftrolabe, and feek out here
More bright i' th' morn', than others beam at noon,
Replenish'd then with fuch rare gifts as thefe,
What new ftar 'twas did gild our hemifphere.
Where was room left for fuch a foul disease?
The nations fin hath drawn that veil which throuds

Our day-spring in so sad benigħting clouds,
Heaven would no longer trust its pledge; but thus
Recall'd it; rapt its Ganymede from us.
Was there no milder way but the small-pox,
The very filthiness of Pandora's box?
So many fpots, like næves on Venus' foil,
One jewel fet off with fo many a foil;
Blitters with pride fwell'd, which through's fef
did sprout

Like rofe-buds, ftuck i' th' lily-fkin about.
Each little pimple had a tear in it,

To wail the fault its rifing did commit:

A

Which, rebel like, with its own lord at ftrife,
Thus made an infurrection 'gainst his life.
Or were thefe gems fent to adorn his skin,
The cab'net of a richer foul within?
No comet need foretel his change drew on,
Whofe corps might feem a conftellation.
O! had he dy'd of old, how great a ftrife [life?
Had been, who from his death fhould draw their
Who should, by one rich draught, become whate'er
Seneca, Cato, Numa, Cæfar, were?

Muft drunkards, lechers, spent with finning, live
With fuch helps as broths, poffets, phyfic give?
None live, but fuch as fhould die, fhall we meet
With none but ghoftly fathers in the street?
Grief makes me rail; forrow will force its way;
And showers of tears tempestuous fighs beft lay.
The tongue may fail; but overflowing eyes
Will weep out lafting ftreams of elegies.

But thou, O virgin-widow, left alone,
Now thy beloved, heaven-ravish'd spouse is gone

Learn'd, virtuous, pious, great; and have by this Whofe fkiltul fire in vain ftrove to apply
An univerfal metempsychosis.

Muft all these aged fires in one funeral
Expire? all die in one fo young, so small?
Who, had he liv'd his life out, his great fame
Had fwol'n 'bove any Greek or Roman name.
But hafty winter, with one blast, hath brought
The hopes of autumn, fummer, fpring, to nought.
Thus fades the oak, i'th' fpring, i'th' blade the corn;
Thus without young, this Phoenix dies, new-born.
Muft then old three-legg'd grey-beards with their
gout.

Catarrhs, rheums, aches, live three long ages out?
'Time's offals, only fit for th' hofpital!
Or to hang antiquaries rooms withal!

Med'cines, when thy balm was no remedy,
With greater than Platonic love, O wed
His foul, though not his body, to thy bed:
Let that make thee a mother; bring thou forth
Ta' ideas of his virtue, knowledge, worth;
Tranfcribe th' original in new copies; give
Haftings o'th' better part; fo fhall he live
In's nobler half; and the great grandûre be
Of an heroic divine progeny:
An iffue, which t' eternity fhall last,
Yet but th' irradiations which he cast.
Erect no Mauiolcums: for his best
↓ Monument is his fpoufe's marble breast.