as examples for our improvement. Poetry, therefore, that is uninstructive, or immoral, cannot please those who retain any moral fenfibility, or uprightnefs of judgement; and muft confequently displease the greater part of any regular fociety of rational creatures. Great wickednefs and great genius may have been united in the fame perfon; but it may be doubted, whether corruption of heart and delicacy of taste be at all compatible. Whenever a writer forgets himself so far, as to give us ground to fufpect him even of momentary impiety or hardheartedness, we charge him in the fame breath with want of confcience and want of tafte; the former being generally, as well as juftly, supposed to comprehend the latter. Cowley was an excellent perfon, and a very witty poet: - but where is the man who would not be afhamed to acknowledge himself pleafed with that clause in the following quotation, which implies, that the author, puffed up with an idle. conceit of the importance of literary renown, was difpofed for a moment to look down with equal contempt upon the brutes and the common people! What fhall I do, to be for ever known, Virgil, *The learned and amiable Dr Hurd has omitted these two lines in his late edition of Cowley's poems. I wish fome Virgil, defcribing a plague among the beasts, gives the following picture, which has every excellence that can belong to defcriptive poetry; and of which Scaliger, with a noble enthusiasm, declares, that he would rather be the author, than first favourite to Cyrus or Crefus : Ecce autem duro fumans fub vomere taurus Which Dryden thus renders : The fteer, who to the yoke was bred to bow, fome editor of Dryden would expunge the laft part of the following fentence, which, as it now ftands, is a reproach to humanity. "One is for raking in Chaucer "for antiquated words, which are never to be reived, "but when found or fignificancy is wanting in the pre"fent language: but many of his deferve not this redemption; any more than the crouds of men who "daily die or are flain for fixpence in a battle, merit to be restored to life, if a wifh could revive them." Poftfcript to Virgil. Not Not to infift upon the mifrepresentation of Virgil's meaning in the first couplet, I would only appeal to the reader, whether, by debafing the charming fimplicity of It triftis arator with his blafphemous paraphrafe, Dryden has not deftroyed the beauty of the paffage*. Such is the oppofition between good poetry * Examples of bad writing might no doubt be produced, on almost any occafion, from Quarles and Blackmore; but as no body reads their works, no body is liable to be mifled by them. It would feem, therefore, more expedient to take fuch examples from authors of merit, whofe beauties too often give a fanction to their blemishes. For this reafon it is, that I have, both here and in other places, taken the liberty to fpeak of Dryden with difapprobation. But as I would not be thought infenfible to the merit of an author, to whom every lo ver of English poetry is deeply indebted, I beg leave, once for all, to deliver at large my opinion of that great ge nius. There is no modern writer, whofe ftyle is more dif tinguishable. Energy and cafe are its chief characters. The former is owing to a happy choice of expreflions, equally emphatical and plain the latter to a laudable partiality in favour of the idioms and radical words of the English tongue; the native riches and peculiar genius whereof are perhaps more apparent in him, than in any other of our poets. In Dryden's more correct pieces, we meet with no affectation of words of Greek or Latin etymology, no cumberfome pomp of epithets, no drawling circumlocutions, no idle glare of images, no blunderings round about a meaning: his English is pure and fimple, nervous and clear, to a degree which Pope has never exceeded, and not always equalled. Yet, as I have elsewhere remarked, his attachment to the ver nacular idiom, as well as the fafhion of his age, often betrays him into a vulgarity, and even meannefs, of expreffion, which is particularly obfervable in his tranfla 2 tions poetry and bad morality! So true it is, that the bard who would captivate the heart muft tions of Virgil and Homer, and in thofe parts of his writings where he aims at pathos or fublimity. In fact, Dryden's genius did not lead him to the fublime or pa thetic. Good ftrokes of both may doubtlefs be found in him; but they are momentary, and feem to be accidental. He is too witty for the one, and too familiar for the other. That he had no adequate relifh for the majefty of Paradife Loft, is evident to thofe who have compared his opera called The state of innocence with that immortal poem; and that his tafte' for the true pathetic was imperfect, too manifeftly appears from the general tenor of his Tranflations, as well as Tragedies. His Virgil abounds in lines and couplets of the most perfect beauty; but these are mixed with others of a dif erent ftamp: nor can they who judge of the original by this tranflation, ever receive any tolerable idea of that uniform magnificence of found and language, that exquifite choice of words, and figures and that fweet pathos of expreffion and of fentiment, which characterise the Mantuan Poet. In delineating the more familiar scenes of life, in clothing plain moral doctrines with eafy and graceful verfification, in the various departments of Comic Satire, and in the fpirit and melody of his Lyric poems, Dryden is inferior to none of those who went before him. He exceeds his master Chaucer in the first in the three laft he rivals Horace; the style of whofe epiftles he has happily imitated in his Religio Laici, and other didactic pieces; and the harmony and elegance of whofe odes he has proved that he could have equalled, if he had thought proper to cultivate that branch of the poetic art. Indeed, whether we confider his peculiar fignificancy of expreffion, or the purity of his style; the fweetnefs of his lyric, or the eafe and perfpicuity of his moral poems; the fportive feverity of his fatire, or his talents in wit and humour; Dryden, in point of genius, (I do not fay tafte), feems to bear a clofer affinity to Horace, than to any other ancient or Vol. II. C modern must fing in unison to the voice of confcience! — and that inftruction (taking the word in no unwarrantable modern author. For energy of words, vivacity of de fcription, and appofite variety of numbers, his Feaft of Alexander is fuperior to any ode of Horace or Pindar now extant. Dryden's verfe, though often faulty, has a grace, and a fpirit, peculiar to itfelf. That of Pope is more correct, and perhaps upon the whole more harmonious; but it is in general more languid, and lefs diversified. Pope's numbers are fweet but elaborate; and our sense of their energy is in fome degree interrupted by our attention to the art difplayed in their contexture: Dryden's are natural and free; and, while they communicate their own sprightly motion to the fpirits of the reader, hurry him along with a gentle and pleafing 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 eafy melody, and boundless variety of rhythm. In this laft refpect I think I could prove, that he is fuperior to all other English poets, Milton himself not excepted. Till Dryden appeared, none of our writers in rhime of the last century approached in any measure to the harmony of Fairfax and Spenfer. 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 fay so much. But in Dryden's hands, the English rhiming couplet affumed a new form; and feems hardly fufceptible of any further improvement. One of the greateft poets of this century, the late and much-lamented Mr Gray of Cambridge, modeftly declared to me, that if there was in his own numbers any thing that deferved approbation, he had learned it all from Dryden. Critics have often ftated a comparifon between Dryden and Pope, as poets of the fame order, and who differed only in degree of merit. But, in my opinion, the merit of the one differs confiderably in kind from that of the other. Both were happy in a found judgement and moft |