are intimately acquainted with the hiftory of his life, it will be no paradox to fay, that his genius was probably greater than his general works fhew it to have been. It was commonly overhung with clouds, which either oppreffed, or threatened him; which fhadowed its fulleft luftre, and obliged him to a precipitate fhelter, and to offer up his first labors, and unfinished and unrevised productions to avert the ftorm. In one

happy moment indeed it broke forth with tranfcendent fublimity; but, in the generality of his exertions, enflaved by habit, and constrained by neceffity, he was alloted to toil without choice, and fometimes without reward.

Dryden feems to have been long deciding upon what was a poetical character; for he was a verfifier eight years, before he introduced himself to public notice, by his Stanzas on Cromwell's Death; and he appears at last to have instituted it upon a principle, that carries its pretenfions too high. Poetry,

n its highest character, can be but an imitation. It muftimitate the truth of nature, in morals and phyfiology equally: and to pretend to exceed, or supplant that, is hyperbolical. If authority were wanting to confirm fo evident a truth, Ariftotle, having enumerated the different species of poetical compofition, concludes, πασαι τυγχανεσιν εσαι μιμήσεις To σuvodov. Yet Dryden, in his famous Dramatic Effay, tells us, "A poet in the de"fcription of a beautiful garden, or a mea"dow, will please our imagination more "than the place itself can our fight." As if that, which has its excellence only from a near resemblance, could exceed its archetype. The imitative arts may indeed please us merely by a faithful representation of those objects, of which the fight would difguft us. The reprefentation of the fhambles, on the painter's canvas, may be admired; or that of the field of battle, as defcribed by the poet, give us fatisfaction : and here" the defcription will please our

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* imagination more than the object itself "can our fight." But what words fhall describe the beauties of nature, above [their own power to please us? Of the subject Dryden has chofen, the poet cannot produce even the nearest resemblance; for the painter, or engraver, comes in between nature and him, to delight us with beauties of imitation, which certainly no words can convey. But, because he had written this in an early effay, it is not therefore to be concluded, that he always believed it. To principles, when they are erroneous, he is not uniformly conftant, either in his practice, or opinion, because he has once entertained them. He has, in his latter writings, honestly and avowedly given up many of his earlier opinions, as inconfiftent and untenable. Others he has virtually renounced, upon better confideration. He firft tells us "that "the words of a good writer, which describe "it livelily, will make a deeper impreffion "of belief on us, than all the actor can in

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"finuate into us, when he seems to fall dead "before us." Yet, a few years afterwards, he fays, "One advantage the drama has "above an heroic poem, that it reprefents "to view, what the poem does but re"late." He forgot, in the first instance, Horace's Segnius irritant animos, &c. which he produces, in the laft, with the fatality of quoting against himself. But many of Dryden's errors, in his pages, are found there, only because he always thought with a pen in his hand. His first thoughts were committed to paper, and at once to the prefs; for he had neither time to revife, compare, nor refer. To keep him a little in countenance in this particular, and to fhew how difficult it is, even to other great geniuses, to be always right, without reference or comparifon, an inadvertency (for it is no more) may be observed, respecting Dryden himself, in the life, written of him by the late learned. Biographer of the Poets; and which had eafily been detected, with common care of re

vision.

vifion. He tells us very gravely; "To the " cenfure of Collier, whofe remarks may be "rather termed admonitions than criti"cifms, he made little reply; being at the

age of sixty-eight, attentive to better things "than the claps of a playhouse.” Now, exactly in that year, in which Dryden was fixty-eight-viz. in 1699-he wrote the Preface to his Fables; and he therein tells us,

If it fhall please God to give me longer "life, and moderate health, my intentions "are to tranflate the whole Ilias." Such were the better things in Dryden's contemplation.

His learning, upon a fair eftimation, will perhaps be found not to have been very extenfive. In the first edition of his Dramatic Effay, a work wherein he certainly difplayed all the learning he was then master of, he has twice used, deos, for the catastrophe of a drama; first translating it, denouement; and then, the untying of the plot. And in the Preface to his Fables he

has