wisest conduct, and the choicest elocution. To speak in the painter's terms, we find in the works of Homer, the most spirit, force, and life; in those of Virgil, the best design, the truest proportions, and the greatest grace; the coloring in both seems equal, and, indeed, is in both admirable. Homer had more fire and rapture, Virgil more light and swiftness; or, at least, the poetical fire was more raging in one, but clearer in the other, which makes the first more amazing, and the latter more agreeable. The ore was heavier in one, but in the other more refined, and better alloyed to make up excellent work. Upon the whole, I think it must be confessed, that Homer was of the two, and perhaps of all others, the vastest, the sublimest, and the most wonderful genius; and that he has been generally so esteemed, there cannot be a greater testimony given, than what has been by some observed, that not only the greatest masters have found in his works the best and truest principles of all their sciences or arts, but that the noblest nations have derived from them the original of their several races, though it be hardly yet agreed, whether his story be true or fic tion. In short, these two immortal poets must be allowed to have so much excelled in their kinds, as to have exceeded all comparison, to have even extinguished emulation, and in a manner confined true poetry, not only to their two languages, but to their very persons. And I am apt to believe so much of the true genius of poetry in general, and of its elevation in these two particulars, that I know not, whether of all the numbers of mankind, that live within the compass of a thousand years, for one man that is born capable of making such a poet as Homer or Virgil, there may not be a thousand born capable of making as great generals of armies, or ministers of state, as any the most renowned in story.

AGAINST EXCESSIVE GRIEF.1

I know no duty in religion more generally agreed on, nor more justly required by God Almighty, than a perfect submission to his will in all things; nor do I think any disposition of mind can either please him more, or becomes us better, than that of being satisfied with all he gives, and contented with all he takes away. None, I am sure, can be of more honor to God, nor of more ease to ourselves. For, if we consider him as our Maker, we cannot contend with him; if as our Father, we ought not to distrust him: so that we may be confident, whatever he does is intended for good; and whatever happens that we interpret otherwise, yet we can get nothing by repining, nor save any thing by resisting.

It is true you have lost a child, and all that could be lost in a child of that age; but you have kept one child, and you are likely

! From a letter addressed to the Countess of Essex, in 1674, after the death of her only daughter.

to do so long; you have the assurance of another, and the hopes of many more. You have kept a husband, great in employment, in fortune, and in the esteem of good men. You have kept your beauty and your health, unless you have destroyed them yourself, or discouraged them to stay with you by using them ill. You have friends who are as kind to you as you can wish, or as you can give them leave to be. You have honor and esteem from all who know you or if ever it fails in any degree, it is only upon that point of your seeming to be fallen out with God and the whole world, and neither to care for yourself, nor any thing else, after you have lost.

what

?

You will say, perhaps, that one thing was all to you, and your fondness of it made you indifferent to every thing else. But this, I doubt, will be so far from justifying you, that it will prove to be your fault, as well as your misfortune. God Almighty gave you all the blessings of life, and you set your heart wholly upon one, and despise or undervalue all the rest: is this his fault or yours Nay, is it not to be very unthankful to Heaven, as well as very scornful to the rest of the world? is it not to say, because you have lost one thing God has given, you thank him for nothing he has left, and care not what he takes away? is it not to say, since that one thing is gone out of the world, there is nothing left in it which you think can deserve your kindness or esteem? A friend makes me a feast, and places before me all that his care or kindness could provide: but I set my heart upon one dish alone, and, if that happens to be thrown down, I scorn all the rest; and though he sends for another of the same kind, yet I rise from the table in a rage, and say, "My friend is become my enemy, and he has done me the greatest wrong in the world." Have I reason, madam, or good grace in what I do? or would it become me better to eat of the rest that is before me, and think no more of what had happened, and could not be remedied?

Christianity teaches and commands us to moderate our passions; to temper our affections towards all things below; to be thankful for the possession, and patient under the loss, whenever He who gave shall see fit to take away. Your extreme fondness was perhaps as displeasing to God before, as now your extreme affliction is; and your loss may have been a punishment for your faults in the manner of enjoying what you had. It is at least plous to ascribe all the ill that befalls us to our own demerits, rather than to injustice in God. And it becomes us better to adore the issues of his providence in the effects, than to inquire into the causes; for submission is the only way of reasoning between a creature and its Maker; and contentment in his will is the greatest duty we can pretend to, and the best remedy we can apply to all our misfortunes.

Ch~,121

JOHN DRYDEN. 1630-1700.

"Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestic march, and energy divine."--POPE.

JOHN DRYDEN, the celebrated English poet, was born in Aldwinkle, in Northamptonshire, 1631. He was educated in Westminster school, and in Trinity College, Cambridge. His first poem that attracted notice was his stanzas on Cromwell's death; but so exceedingly pliable was he, that, in 1660, he wrote a congratulatory address to Charles II., on his restoration to the throne of his ancestors. But this did not "put money in his purse," and he was soon obliged to betake himself to what was then a more profitable de partment of poetry, and write for the stage, which he continued to do for many years. In these literary labors he debased his genius to an extent which no "circumstances of the times" can excuse, by writing in a manner and style that entirely harmonized with the licentious spirit and taste of the court and age of Charles II.

In 1668 he succeeded Davenant as poet-laureate, which excited the envy of those who aspired to the same royal distinction. The most powerful of his enemies were the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of Rochester, the former of whom ridiculed the poet in that well-known farce called "The Rehearsal." In return, Dryden, in 1681, published his satire of "Absalom and Achitophel,” perhaps the most vigorous as well as the most popular of all his poetical writings. This was speedily followed by "The Medal," a bitter lampoon on Shaftesbury, and was followed up the next year by « Mac Flecknoe,"1 and the second part of " Absalom and Achitophel." These were all most bitter satires upon his personal enemies, Buckingham, Monmouth, Shaftesbury, Set. tle, Shadwell, and others. In "Absalom and Achitophel," Monmouth figures under the former, and Shaftesbury under the latter name.

After the accession of James, (1685,) when Popery became the chief quali fication for court favor, Dryden renounced Protestantism and turned Papist. He gained but little by it, though he wrote in defence of the Romish faith in "The Hind and the Panther."2 In 1689, one year after the abdication of James, he would not take the required oaths to the government of William and Mary, and was therefore compelled to resign his oflice of poet-laureate, which, with a salary increased to £300, was conferred on Thomas Shadwell, whom Dryden thus satirized in his "Mac Flecknoe:"

The rest to some faint meaning make pretence,

But Shadwell never deviates into sense.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,

Strike through, and make a lucid interval;

But Shadwell's genuine night admits no day,3

1 Mac is the Celtic for son; and Richard Flecknoe was an Irish Roman Catholic priest, and a wellknown hackneyed poetaster. The leading idea of the poem, therefore, is, to represent the solemn Inauguration of one inferior poet as the successor (“son") of another, in the monarchy of nonsense. 2 The idea of two beasts discussing arguments in theology, and quoting the Fathers, excited disgust or merriment, so that, as a work of controversy, it proved a complete failure.

* That this is the language of bitter personal enmity, no one can doubt, from the fact that such a ce as Dryden describes would not be honored with such a post. Accordingly, a modern critle (Retrospective Review, xvi. 56) says of Shadwell, "He was an accomplished observer of human nature, had a ready power of seizing the ridiculous in the manners of the times, was a man of sense and information, and displayed in his writings a very considerable fund of humor."

The latter years of his life were devoted to the translation of Juvenal and
Perseus, and of the Æneid, by which he is more known than by any of his
original poetry, if we except the "Ode on St. Cecilia's Day," which he
"finished at one sitting," as he himself said, while he was engaged in trans
lating the Mantuan bard. This ode ranks among the best lyrical pieces in our
language; but it contains some licentiousness of imagery and description
which justly detracts from its general popularity. His last work was a
Masque, composed about three weeks before his death, which took place on
the 1st of May, 1700. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.

The character of Dryden is not such as to command our respect or esteem
He seems to have had no sound principles, either in morals or in religion.
His movements were those of the weathercock, showing the current of the
popular breeze. He wrote for the day, and he had his reward,-popularity
for the time, but comparative neglect with posterity. As a poet he cannot take
rank in the first class. A writer in the Retrospective Review1 very justly re-
marks, that "it is well that his fame has become a settled conviction in the
public mind, for were a man casually called upon to prove the truth of the
position, though secure of ultimate victory, he would find the task not unen-
cumbered with difficulty-he could not appeal to any particular work, as
being universally read, and as universally admired and approved. His trans-
lations, it is true, are spirited, and convey all, and frequently more than the
writer's meaning; but then, he has taken improper liberties with his author,
and fills the mind of the reader with emotions of a different character than
would be produced by the original. Then his plays are bombastic, and as a
proof of their worthlessness, it may be alleged they are forgotten. His fables,
his odes, his tales, his satires remain; all of which, it is clear, on the reading,
could only be written by a man of gigantic genius, but are, as wholes, from the
lapse of time and the occasional nature of many, and from the imperfections
of haste and carelessness, far from being among the choice favorites of the
common reader."

To these remarks may be added the discriminating criticism of Campbell:2
"He is a writer of manly and elastic character. His strong judgment gave
force as well as direction to a flexible fancy; and his harmony is generally
the echo of solid thoughts. But he was not gifted with intense or lofty sen-
sibility; on the contrary, the grosser any idea is, the happier he seems to
expatiate upon it. The transports of the heart, and the deep and varied
delineations of the passions, are strangers to his poetry. He could describe
character in the abstract, but could not embody it in the drama, for he entered
into character more from clear perception than fervid sympathy. This great
High Priest of all the Nine was not a confessor to the finer secrets of the hu
man breast. Had the subject of Eloisa fallen into his hands, he would have
left but a coarse draft of her passion."

Such, I think, is a fair view of Dryden's poetical character. True, Gray, in his "Progress of Poesy," alludes to "the stately march and sounding energy of his rhymes;" and these qualities they certainly possess: and the same fas tilious critic has justly immortalized the "thoughts that breathe, and words that burn," in his celebrated lyric, "Alexander's Feast." But after all, he possesses in a slight degree, comparatively, those great qualities which make the true poet-imagination-fancy-invention-pathos--sublimity. That he might have done better than he has, I have not the least doubt. Hence, his case reads a most instructive lesson to men of intellect. Endowed with abi

1 Retrospective Review, i. 113.

2 Specimens, i. 237.

1

lities of the highest order, he was clearly capable of producing such works as posterity would "not willingly let die." But instead of spending his mighty strength upon those principles of immutable truth and of universal human nature, which will ever find a response in the human heart as long as there are hearts to feel; he wasted his time and debased his genius, by writing too much upon subjects of merely temporal interest, and in such a manner as to be in keeping with the corrupt sentiments and the licentious spirit of the age. When will men of genius, capable of exerting a mighty influence for good, for all coming time, learn to trample under their feet the false and debasing sentiments, dishonoring to God and degrading to man, that exist around them, and rise to immortality by the only sure paths,-virtue and truth?1

ODE TO THE MEMORY OF MRS. ANNE KILLEGREW.

Thou youngest virgin-daughter of the skies,
Made in the last promotion of the blest;
Whose palms, new pluck'd from Paradise,
In spreading branches more sublimely rise,
Rich with immortal green, above the rest:
Whether, adopted to some neighboring star,
Thou roll'st above us, in thy wandering race,
Or, in procession fix'd and regular,
Mov'st with the heaven-majestic pace;
Or, call'd to more superior bliss,

Thou tread'st, with seraphims, the vast abyss:
Whatever happy region is thy place,
Cease thy celestial song a little space;

Thou wilt have time enough for hymns divine,
Since heaven's eternal year is thine.

Hear, then, a mortal Muse thy praise rehearse,
In no ignoble verse;

But such as thine own voice did practise here,
When thy first-fruits of poesy were given;
To make thyself a welcome inmate there:
While yet a young probationer,
And candidate of heaven.

If by traduction came thy mind,
Our wonder is the less to find

A soul so charming from a stock so good;
Thy father was transfused into thy blood:
So wert thou born into a tuneful strain,
An early, rich, and inexhausted vein.

But if thy pre-existing soul

Was form'd at first with myriads more,
It did through all the mighty poets roll,
Who Greek or Latin laurels wore,

And was that Sappho last, which once it was before.
If so, then cease thy flight, O heaven-born mind!
Thou hast no dross to purge from thy rich ore:
Nor can thy soul a fairer mansion find

1 Read-two articles on Dryden in the Retrospective Review, i. 113, and iv. 55: also, one in the Edinburgh, xiii. 116, and another in Macaulay's Miscellanies, i. 127. Also, in Blair's lectures, lect. xviii., and in Hallam's Literature, pp. 377 and 378. The best edition of Dryden's works is that by Sir Walter Scott, 18 vols. 8vo. Edinburgh, 1821.