that our deaths can fupply but few materials for a poet. In the fate of princes the publick has an intereft; and what happens to them of good or evil, the poets have always confidered as business for the Mufe. But after fo many inauguratory gratulations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he must be highly favoured by nature, or by fortune, who fays any thing not faid before. Even war and conqueft, however fplendid, fuggeft no new images; the triumphal chariot of a victorious monarch can be decked only with thofe ornaments that have graced his prede ceffors.

Not only matter but time is wanting. The poem must not be delayed till the occafion is forgotten. The lucky moments of animated imagination cannot be attended; elegances and illustrations cannot be multiplied by gradual accumulation; the composition must be dispatched while converfation is yet bufy, and admiration fresh; and hafte is to be made, left fome other event fhould lay hold upon mankind,

Occafional compofitions may however fecure to a writer the praise both of learning and facility; for they cannot be the effect of long ftudy, and must be furnished immediately from the treasures of the mind.

The death of Cromwell was the firft publick event which called forth Dryden's poetical powers. His heroick ftanzas 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 eafy.

Davenant was perhaps at this time his favourite author, though Gondibert never appears to have

been

been popular; and from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the ftanza of four lines alternately rhymed.

Dryden very early formed his verfification: there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonfon's ruggednefs; but he did not fo foon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verfes on the Reftoration, he fays of the King's exile,

He, tofs'd by Fate

Could tafte no fweets of youth's desired age,

But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

And afterwards, to fhew how virtue and wisdom are increased by adverfity, he makes this remark:

Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honour'd name of counsellor,
Since, ftruck with rays of profperous fortune blind,
We light alone in dark afflictions find.

His praife of Monk's dexterity comprises fuch a clufter of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be easily found:

'Twas Monk, whom providence design'd to loose
Those real bonds falfe freedom did impofe.
The bleffed faints that watch'd this turning fcene,
Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To fee fmall clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus pencils can by one flight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease fuch fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames for fancy to fubdue:
But, when ourselves to action we betake,
It fhuns the mint like gold that chymifts make:

How

:

How hard was then his tafk, at once to be
What in the body natural we fee!
Man's Architect diftin&tly did ordain

The charge of mufcles, nerves, and of the brain,
Through viewless conduits fpirits to difpenfe
The fprings of motion from the feat of sense.
'Twas not the hafty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wife delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he ftrook,
Would let them play a-while upon the hook.
Our healthful food the ftomach labours thus,
At first embracing what it strait doth crush.
Wife leaches will not vain receipts obtrude,
While growing pains pronounce the humours crude;
Deaf to complaints, they wait upon the ill,

Till fome fafe crifis authorize their skill.

He had not yet learned, indeed he never learned well, to forbear the improper use of mythology, After having rewarded the heathen deities for their care,

With Alga who the facred altar ftrows?

To all the fea-gods Charles an offering owes;
A bull to thee, Portunus, shall be slain ;
A ram to you, ye Tempefts of the Main.

He tells us, in the language of religion,

Prayer ftorm'd the fkies, and ravifh'd Charles from thence,

As heaven itself is took by violence.

And afterwards mentions one of the moft awful paf, fages of Sacred Hiftory.

Other conceits there are, too curious to be quite omitted; as,

For by example moft we finn'd before,

And, glass-like, clearnefs mix'd with frailty bore.

How

How far he was yet from thinking it neceffary to found his fentiments on Nature, appears from the extravagance of his fictions and hyperboles.

The winds, that never moderation knew,
Afraid to blow too much, too faintly blew;
Or, out of breath with joy, could not enlarge
Their ftraiten'd lungs.-

It is no longer motion cheats your view;
As you meet it, the land approacheth you;
The land returns, and in the white it wears
The marks of penitence and forrow bears.

I know not whether this fancy, however little 'be its
value, was not borrowed. A French poet read to Mal-
herbe some verses in which he reprefents France as
moving out of its place to receive the king.
"Though
"this," faid Malherbe, "was in my time, I do not
"remember it."

His poem on the Coronation has a more even tenour of thought, Some lines deferve to be quoted :

You have already quench'd fedition's brand,
And zeal, that burnt it, only warms the land;
The jealous fects that durft not truft their caufe
So far from their own will as to the laws,
Him for their umpire, and their fynod take,
And their appeal alone to Cæfar make.

Here may be found one particle of that old verfification, of which, I believe, in all his works, there is not another:

Nor is it duty, or our hope alone,
Creates that joy, but full fruition.

In the verses to the lord chancellor Clarendon, two years afterwards, is a conceit fo hopeless at the first

5

view,

view, that few would have attempted it; and fo fuc
cessfully laboured, that though at laft it gives the
reader more perplexity than pleasure, and feems hardly
worth the ftudy that it costs, yet it must be valued as
a proof of a mind at once fubtle and comprehenfive:
In open prospect nothing bounds our eye,
Until the earth feems join'd unto the sky;
So in this hemisphere our utmost view
Is only bounded by our king and you :
Our fight is limited where you are join'd,
And beyond that no farther heaven can find..
So well your virtues do with his agree,

That, though your orbs of different greatness be,
Yet both are for each other's ufe difpos'd,

His to enclose, and yours to be enclos'd,
Nor could another in your room have been,
Except an emptiness had come between.

The comparison of the Chancellor to the Indies leaves all refemblance too far behind it ;

And as the Indies were not found before
Thofe rich perfumes which from the happy fhore
The winds upon their balmy wings convey'd,
Whofe guilty fweetnefs firft their world betray'd;
So by your counfels we are brought to view
A new and undifcover'd world in you.

There is another comparison, for there is little else in the poem, of which, though perhaps it cannot be explained into plain profaick meaning, the mind perceives enough to be delighted, and readily forgives its obfcurity, for its magnificence:

How ftrangely active are the arts of peace,
Whofe reftlefs motions lefs than wars do cease:
Peace is not freed from labour, but from noife;
And war more force,, but not more pains employs :

Such