His plays have perhaps the leaft merit of all his writings. He has himself confeffed his unfitness for the writing of comedy. "I want," fays he, " that gaiety of humour that is required in it; sq that those who decry my comedies, do me no injury except in point of profit. Reputation in them is the last thing to which 1 fhall pretend." But even in this branch of poetry he has written enough to perpetuate his fame; as his All for Love, Spanife Friar, Don Sebaftian, and Conquest of Granada, can never be forgotten. It should be remembered that he deferves a much feverer cenfure for the immorality of his plays, than for any defects in their compofition.

His character as a critic and a poet, has been illuftrated by writers of distinguished ability, but it is moft happily illuftrated by the claffical pen of Dr. Johnfon, who has written his life with candor, analyfed his character with much ingenuity, and difmiffed him with a juft eulogium.

Dryden may be properly confidered as the father of English criticism. His Efay on Dramatic Poetry was the fift regular and valuable treatise on the Art of Writing. It will not be easy to find, in all the opulence of our language, a treatise fo artfully variegated with fucceflive reprefentations of oppofite probabilities, fo enlivened with imagery, fo brightened with illustrations.

His fcholaftic acquifitions, though great, feem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities. He could not, in Dr. Johnfon's opinion, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illuftrious merely by his learning. Yet it cannot be faid that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with knowledge, and fparkle with illuftrations.

Criticism either didactic or defenfive, occupies almost all his profe, except thofe pages which he has devoted to his patrons; but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not, as Dr. Johnson obferves, the formality of a settled ftyle, in which the first half of the fentence betrays the other. The claufes are never balanced, nor the periods modelled: every word feems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous: what is little, is gay; what is great, is fplendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himself upon our esteem, we cannot refufe him to stand high in his own. Every thing is executed by the play of images, and the sprightlinefs of expreffion. Though all is easy, nothing is feeble; though all seems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though, fince his earlier works, more than a century has paffed, they have nothing yet uncouth or obsolete.

From his profe, however, he deserves only his fecondary praise; the veneration with which his name is pronounced, by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the fentiments, and tuned the numbers of English poetry.

Waller was fmooth, but Dryden taught to join
The varying verfe, the full refounding line,
The long majestic march, and energy divine.

FOPE.

Dryden is the most universal of all poets. This universality has been objected to him as a fault, but it was the unhappy effect of penury and dependence. His feveral productions were fo many fucceffive expedients for his support; his plays were therefore often borrowed, and his poems were almost all occafional. His Heroic Stanzas on the death of Cromwell, were among the earliest of his occafional compofitions. They have beauties and defects; the thoughts are vigorous, and though not always proper, fhew a mind replete with ideas; the numbers are smooth, and the diction, if not altogether correct, is elegant and easy. His Aftrea fhows that he had not yet learned to reject forced conceits, or to forbear the improper ufe of mythology. Into his Verfes to the Lord Chancellor, he feems to have collected all his powers. They afford his first attempt at those penetrating remarks on human nature, for which he seems to have been peculiarly formed. The Annus Mirabilis is written with great diligence, yet does not fully answer the expectation raised by such subjects and such a writer. With the ftanza of Davenant, he has fometimes his vein of parenthesis and incidental Aifquifition. He affords more fentiment than defcription, and does not fo much imprefs fcenes upon the fancy, as deduce confequences, and make comparifons. His Abfalem and Achitophel comptifes all the excellencies of which a poem political and controverfial is fufceptible; acrimony of cenfure, ele

gance of praife, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of fentiment, happy turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers, and all these raised to such a height as scarcely can be found in any other English compofition. It is not, however, without faults. The original ftructure 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 stanzas 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 Panther, the largest of all his original poenis, 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 em bellished with pointed fentences, diverfified by illuftrations, and enlivened by fallies of invective. In the poem, On the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very remarkable but the exorbitant adula tion. His Mac-Flecknoe 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 preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The translation of Perfur is written in an uniform mediocrity, without any eager, endeavour after excellence, or la borious effect of the mind. His fion of Virgil, his greatest and most laborious work, is pronounced by Pope, “the most noble and spirited translation 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 instances where he hath excelled." His Fables, the most perfect of his works, have not received, from Dr. Johnson, the commendation they deferve. Dryden was probably partial in setting the story of Palamon and Arcite on a level with the Eneid, yet it merits great praife. The Flower and Leaf, paffed over by Dr. Johnson, is happily modernifed; 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, Sigifsunda and Guifcardo, and Theodore and Honoria. The warmth and melody of thefe 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 exacteft nicety of art, and is juflly 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 elfe, 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. Johnson 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 skill are displayed on both fides. Mifs Seward ftrenuoully maintains the pretenfions of Pope, and Mr. Wefton fights with inextinguishable ardour in the cause of his favourite, Dryden.

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Dr. Beattie's comparison of the versification of Dryden and Pope merits particular attention. S" 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 sweet, but ela porate; and our sense of their energy is in fome degree interrupted by our attention to the art

displayed in their contexture. Dryden's are more natural and free, and while they communicate their own sprightly motion to the fpirits of the reader, hurry him along with a gentle and pleasing violence, without giving him time either to animadvert on their faults, or to analyfe 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. Tili 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 ftruck out of their works, we could not say so much. But, in Dryden's hands, the English rhyming couplet affumed a new form, and feems hardly to be susceptible of any farther improvement."

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

"In a general survey of Dryden's labours," fays 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 reafon than quick fenfibility. Upon all occafions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not fuch as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the ample and elemental passions, as they spring and operate in the mind, he seems not much acquainted, and feldom defcribes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of fociety, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.

"He is therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetic, and had fo little fenfibility of the power of effufions purely natural, that he did not esteem 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 confeffed 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 fallics 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 difmiffed from his thoughts, and, f 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 neceflity; but his fubfequent neglect could hardly have any other caufe 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 paufes, and adjust the accents; to diverfify the cadence, and yet preferve the smoothnefs of his metre.

"Of Dryden's works it was faid by Pope, that "he could felect from them better fpecimens of every mode of poetry, than any other English writer could fupply." Perhaps no nation ever pro duced 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 tanflator's liberty. What was faid of Rome, adorned by Auguftus, may be applied by an eafy metapher to English poetry, embellished by Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and he left it marble."

ORIGINAL POE M S.

UPON THE DEATH OF LORD HASTINGS.