banks, and stirs up the ooze from the bottom of its channel; but that ooze is mixed with grains of precious gold, and those weeds contain amongst them, flowers of the most delightful hue and odour; whilst the very swiftness of the current fixes our regard more intently than the tranquil surface of the gentler stream. He seems to have principally aimed at being strong and forcible, and to this object every minor consideration is sacrificed. To use the language of a noble poet, he wreaks his thoughts upon expression, and conveys them to the reader in the full force and energy of their first conception. He never appears to regard the mere structure of a sentence, nor is careful to wind it up in the neatest manner; neither are there marks of any subsequent labour, to polish and elaborate his style. We know, indeed, that he has been at the pains to revise some of his prose works, but his corrections are merely those of verbal inaccuracies, and ungrammatical structures, which crept into the most finished writings of the period; but, in general, he seems to have left his sentences just as they were struck off in the first heat of composition. There are, in consequence, some that have been roughly cast, which look rude and unfinished; sometimes there is a sharp edge, or abrupt projection, which a more fastidious taste might wish to see planed down, or rounded off; and, generally speaking, there is not that high polish, which is visible in the compositions of a later date; but all sense of this is lost in admiration of that matchless strength and occasional felicity, which are seldom found associated with strict correctness and undeviating propriety. He is, indeed, the very reverse of that correct and frugal genius which he somewhere describes-he is no judge, to a hair, of little decencies, nor afraid to hazard himself so far as to fall-he does not move cautiously and carefully on, and deliberately put his staff before him to feel his way-his motion is that of a giant, who delights to run his course, and exults in his strength, the elasticity of whose step, the firmness of whose tread, and the immortal vigour conspicuous in every motion, leave no eyes for any ungraceful attitude, or occasional impropriety of gesture.

It seems to us, that not even the most celebrated productions of his genius disclose a mind more forcible, or an imagination more ardent and fertile, than these off-hand compositions, where he used no effort, and intended nothing great. In a preface or a dedication, he sometimes appears to more advantage than in the elaborate drama to which they are appended; and whilst in the one, we have too often reason to sigh over the aberrations of genius, we cannot enough admire the vigorous intellect every where conspicuous in the other. Whatever topic he touches upon, no matter how barren or unpromising, the flowers are made to spring up on all sides, as in the most favourable soil;

and the fancy is every where at work, enlivening the most common-place subjects, and suggesting images of the greatest beauty. His mind must have been, indeed, inexhaustible, when he could thus afford to throw away upon his prose compositions a profusion of brilliant thoughts and lively conceptions, such as would have made the fortune of another writer. Yet, with all this, his style is neither florid nor over-wrought. A less powerful writer might have been encumbered with so much ornament, and one, of inferior judgment, have grown wanton amidst such boundless wealth; but Dryden disposes of the whole with the utmost ease; and the appearance of his strength is never diminished, nor the vigour of his course abated, by the trappings with which his fancy invests him. He never bewilders himself, nor loses sight of his purpose in the multiplicity of ideas that come crowding thick upon him, but hurries on without tarrying to examine them minutely, or being at the pains fully to develope them. His flowers are seen only in the bud

his images rather hinted at than openly disclosed; he never dallies with a bright idea, or forsakes his argument to hunt it to the death, and exhilarate himself with the pleasures of the chase. This is the fault of writers whose fancy is less luxuriant, and invention less fertile. An excellent thought, with them, occurs too rarely to be lightly treated or speedily released. They are not satisfied without viewing it in every possible light, and pursuing it through all its varieties; they make the most of it whilst they have it, and, after many a fond parting look, dismiss it with reluctance. But Dryden had too rich store to have any occasion for such parsimonious frugality; and, as if his resources could never fail, he just glances at the lively thought he has started, and then abandons it with an indifference, that seems little short even of waste and extravagance.

The dedications which are prefixed to the several plays of Dryden are the most remarkable, if not the most meritorious, productions of which we shall have occasion to take notice. In an atmosphere where his genius might well be expected to droop, it flourishes as vigorously as in the most wholesome air; and round strains of the most egregious and unbounded adulation diffuses a glory, which dazzles by its brightness, and makes us admire where we ought only to feel disgust. His praises are not only lavished with a profusion which the most exalted merit could not justify, but he rains down a golden shower of virtues upon objects, which never enjoyed the least particle of what is so unsparingly attributed to them. Thus, Rochester is commended for delicacy of expression, and the decencies of behaviour-Danby, for financial skill and integrity-Leicester, for political neutrality-and that "ever unfortunate gentle

man," the Duke of Newcastle, for the signal success of his warlike achievements. To the latter he writes thus:

"As you came into the world with all the advantages of a noble birth and education, so you have rendered both yet more conspicuous by your virtue. Fortune, indeed, has perpetually crowned your undertakings with success, but she has only waited on your valour, not conducted it. She has ministered to your glory like a slave, and has been led in triumph by it; or at most, while honour led you by the hand to greatness, fortune only followed to keep you from sliding back in the ascent. That which Plutarch accounted her favour to Cimon and Lucullus, was but her justice to your Grace; and never to have been overcome where you led in person, as it was more than Hannibal could boast, so it was all that Providence could do for that party which it had resolved to ruin. Thus, my lord, the last smiles of victory were on your arms; and every where else declaring for the rebels, she seemed to suspend herself, and to doubt, before she took her flight, whether she were able wholly to abandon that cause for which you fought.

"Thus, my lord, the morning of your life was clear and calm; and though it was afterwards overcast, yet, in that general storm, you were never without a shelter. And now you are happily arrived to the evening of a day as serene as the dawn of it was glorious; but such an evening as, I hope, and almost prophecy, is far from night; it is the evening of a summer's sun, which keeps the daylight long within the skies."

In his dedication of the Conquest of Grenada, he gives his highness the Duke to understand, that he is the prototype of his heroes, the pattern of his imitation, and that in dedicating to him the faint representations of his own worth and value, he only restores to him those ideas, which, in the more perfect part of his character, he has taken from him. Your whole life, (he continues,)

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"Has been a continued series of heroick actions, which you began so early, that you were no sooner named in the world, but it was with praise and admiration. Even the first blossoms of your youth paid us all that could be expected from a ripening manhood. While you practised but the rudiments of war, you outwent all other captains; and have since found none to surpass but yourself alone. The opening of your glory was like that of light; you shone to us from afar, and disclosed your first beams on distant nations; yet so, that the lustre of them was spread abroad, and reflected brightly on your native country. You were then an honour to it, when it was a reproach to itself; and when the fortunate usurper sent his arms to Flanders, many of the adverse party were vanquished by your fame, ere they tried your valour. The report of it drew over to your ensigns whole troops and companies of converted rebels; and made

them forsake successful wickedness, to follow an oppressed and exiled virtue."

The Lord Treasurer Clifford is to be adored at a distance, and worshipped. The effects of his virtue are to be comprehended only by admiration; and the greatest note of admiration is silence.

"It is that noble passion to which poets raise their audience in highest subjects, and they have then gained over them the greatest victory, when they are ravished into a pleasure which is not to be expressed by words. To this pitch, my lord, the sense of my gratitude had almost raised me;-to receive your favours, as the Jews of old received their law, with a mute wonder,-to think, that the loudness of acclamation was only the praise of men to men, and that the secret homage of the soul was a greater mark of reverence than an outward ceremonious joy, which might be counterfeit, and must be irreverent in its tumult. Neither, my lord, have I a particular right to pay you my acknowledgments; you have been a good so universal, that almost every man in three nations may think me injurious to his propriety, that I invade your praises in undertaking to celebrate them alone; and that I have assumed to myself a patron, who was no more to be circumscribed than the sun and elements, which are of public benefit to human kind."

But it is when he addresses the beautiful and illustrious of the other sex, that he rises into the highest heavens of flattery, and becomes transcendentally celestial.

"But with whatsoever vanity this new honour of being your poet has filled my mind, I confess myself too weak for the inspiration; the priest was always unequal to the oracle; the god within him was too mighty for his breast. He laboured with the sacred revelation, and there was more of the mystery left behind, than divinity itself could enable him to express. I can but discover a part of your excellencies to the world; and that too according to the measure of my own weakness. Like those who have surveyed the moon by glasses, I can only tell of a new and shining world above us, but not relate the riches and glories of the place; it is therefore that I have already waved the subject of your greatness, to resign myself to the contemplation of what is more peculiarly your's. Greatness is indeed communicated to some few of both sexes; but beauty is confined to a more narrow compass it is only in your sex; it is not shared by many, and its supreme perfection is in you alone.

"You are never seen but you are blest; and I am sure you bless all those who see you. We think not the day is long enough when we behold you; and you are so much the business of our souls, that while you are in sight, we can neither look nor think on any else. There are no eyes for other beauties; you only are present, and the rest of your sex are but the unregarded parts that fill your triumph.

Our sight is so intent on the object of its admiration, that our tongues have not leisure even to praise you; for language seems too low a thing to express your excellence, and our souls are speaking so much within, that they despise all foreign conversation. Every man, even the dullest, is thinking more than the most eloquent can teach him how to utter. Thus, madam, in the midst of crowds, you reign in solitude; and are adored with the deepest veneration, that of silence. It is true, you are above all mortal wishes; no man desires impossibilities, because they are beyond the reach of nature. To hope to be a god, is folly exalted into madness; but by the laws of our creation, we are obliged to adore him, and are permitted to love him at human distance. It is the nature of perfection to be attractive, but the excellency of the object refines the nature of the love. It strikes an impression of awful reverence; it is indeed that love which is more properly a zeal than passion. It is the rapture which anchorites find in prayer, when a beam of the Divinity shines upon them; that which makes them despise all worldly objects; and yet it is all but contemplation. They are seldom visited from above; but a single vision so transports them, that it makes up the happiness of their lives. Mortality cannot bear it often: it finds them in the eagerness and height of their devotion; they are speechless for the time that it continues, and prostrate and dead when it departs. That ecstacy had needs be strong, which, without any end but that of admiration, has power enough to destroy all other passions. You render mankind insensible to other beauties, and have destroyed the empire of love in a court which was the seat of his dominion."

Such was the incense which the genius of Dryden offered up to the high-born dames of the court of Charles; and, although brighter beauties than Mary of Este may have existed, and had their praises sung by the poets of their day, yet they were never, we believe, addressed in so rich a strain of adulation. Dr. Johnson, who has manifested but little indulgence to this style of writing in general, is particularly angry with this dedication: he terms it, an attempt to mingle earth with heaven, by praising human excellence in the language of religion. We are not disposed to regard it with such severity. Poets have always been indulged with the license of addressing beauty in terms of hyperbolical adulation; and Dryden only offends, in having offered up his incense in prose instead of verse. In the luxuriance of his fancy and the fertility of his invention, we think it possible to find an excuse for the language of his dedications in general, and are inclined to attribute it a good deal more to them, than to any spirit of peculiar servility. He seems, indeed, in the fervor of composition, to lose sight altogether of the silly women and profligate courtiers he is addressing, and to draw from some phantom of his own brain, which he endows with every species of intellectual and moral excellence. On these, he has imposed the names of certain of the great, but