To try new frouds one mounts into the wind,

And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I fuppofe here is not one term which every reader does not with away

His digreffion to the original and progrefs of navigation, with his profpect of the advancement which it fhall receive from the Royal Society, then newly inftituted, may be confidered as an example feldom equalled of feasonable excurfion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me difcontented; he fays, that by the help of the philofophers,

Inftructed ships shall fail to quick commerce,

By which remoteft regions are allied.—

Which he is constrained to explain in a note, By a more exact measure of longitude. It had better become Dry-den's learning and genius to have laboured science into poetry, and have fhewn, by explaining longitude, that verfe did not refufe the ideas of philofophy.

His defcription of the Fire is painted by refolute meditation, out of a mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city, with all its tumults of concomitant diftrefs, is one of the moft dreadful fpectacles which this world can offer to human eyes ; yet it feems to raife little emotion in the breaft of the poet; he watches the flame coolly from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a fimile, till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a fpeech, rather tedious in a time fo bufy; and then follows again the progrefs of the fire.

There are, however, in this part fome paffages that deferve attention; as in the beginning:

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain
And luxury more late afleep were laid;

All was the night's, and in her filent reign
No found the reft of Nature did invade

In this deep quiet

The expreffion All was the night's is taken from Seneca, who remarks on Virgil's line,

Omnia noctis erant placida composta quiete,

that he might have concluded better, Omnia noctis erant.

The following quatrain is vigorous and animated:

The ghofts of traytors from the bridge defcend
With bold fanatick spectres to rejoice;
About the fire into a dance they bend,

And fing their fabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which fhall be made in the new city, is elegant and poetical, and, with an event which Poets cannot always boast, has been happily verified. The poem concludes with a fimile that might have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, feems not yet fully to have formed his verfification, or fettled his fyftem of propriety.

From this time, he addicted himself almost wholly to the stage, to which, fays he, my genius never much inclined me, merely as the moft profitable market for poetry. By writing tragedies in rhyme, he continued to improve his diction and his numbers. According to the opinion of Harte, who had ftudied his works with great attention, he fettled his principles of verfification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng Zeb; and according to his own account of the fhort time in which he wrote Tyrannick Love, and the State of Innocence, he foon obtained the full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.

VOL. II.

D d

Rhyme

Rhyme has been fo long banished from the theatre, that we know not its effect upon the paffions of an audience; but it has this convenience, that sentences ftand more independent on each other, and ftriking paffages are therefore eafily felected and retained. Thus the description of Night in the Indian Emperor, and the rife and fall of empire in the Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any lines in All for Love, or Don Sebastian.

To fearch his plays for vigorous fallies, and fententious elegances, or to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by folicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.

His dramatic labours did not fo wholly abforb his thoughts, but that he promulgated the laws of tranflation in a preface to the English Epiftles of Ovid; one of which he tranflated himself, and another in conjunction with the Earl of Mulgrave.

Abfalom and Achitophel is a work fo well known, that particular criticifin is fuperfluous. If it be confidered as a poem political and controverfial, it will be' found to comprise all the excellences of which the fubject is fufceptible; acrimony of cenfure, elegance of praife, artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of fentiment, happy turns of language, and pleafing harmony of numbers; and all these raised to fuch a height as can fcarcely be found in any other English compofition.

It is not, however, without faults; fome lines are inelegant or improper, and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original ftructure of the poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break; Charles could not run continually parallel with

The

The fubject had likewise another inconvenience: it admitted little imagery or defcription, and a long poem of mere fentiments eafily becomes tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interpofition of fomething that fooths the fancy, grows weary of adiniration, and defers the reft.

As an approach to historical truth was neceffary, the action and catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is therefore an unpleafing difproportion between the beginning and the end. We are alarmed by a factipn formed out of many fects various in their principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for their numbers, and ftrong by their fupports, while the king's friends are few and weak. The chiefs on either part are set forth to view; but when expectation is at the height, the king makes á speech, and

Henceforth a series of new times began.

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted caftle, with a wide moat and lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brafs, which vanishes at once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?

In the fecond part, written by Tate, there is a long infertion, which, for poignancy of fatire, exceeds any part of the former. Pèrfonal refentment, though no laudable motive to fatire, can add great force to genetal principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.

The Medal, written upon the fame principles with Abfalom and Achitophel, but upon a narrower plan, gives lefs pleasure, though it discovers equal abilities in the writer. The fuperftructure cannot extend beyond the foundation; a fingle character or incident cannot furDd 2

nith

nifh as many ideas, as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem therefore, fince time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor perhaps generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and ferious fatire. The picture of a man whofe propenfions to mischief are fuch, that his best actions are but inability of wickednefs, is very skillfully delineated and strongly coloured :

Power was his aim: but thrown from that pretence,
The wretch turn'd loyal in his own defence,
And malice reconcil'd him to his Prince,
Him, in the anguifh of his foul, he ferv'd;
Rewarded fafter ftill than he deferv'd:"
Behold him now exalted into truft;
His counfels oft convenient, feldom juft,
Ev'n in the most fincere advice he gave,
He had a grudging ftill to be a knave.
The frauds he learnt in his fanatic years,
Made him uneafy in his lawful gears:
At leaft as little honeft as he cou'd:
And, like white witches, mifchievously good.
To this first bias, longingly, he leans,

And rather would be great by wicked means.

}

The Threnodia, which, by a term I am afraid nei ther authorized nor analogical, he calls Auguftalis, is not among his happicft productions. Its first and obvious defect is the irregularity of its metre, to which the ears of that age, however, were accustomed. What is worse, it has neither tenderness nor dignity, it is neither magnificent nor pathetick. He feems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what he has he diftorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. He is, he says, petrified with grief; but the marble fometimes relents, and trickles in a joke.

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