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containing an action unfuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to pafs without cenfure of the hyperbolical commendation which Dryden has given it in the general Preface, and in a poetical Dedication, a piece where his original fondness of remote conceits feems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace Sigifmunda may be defended by the celebrity of the ftory. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not much moral, yet afforded opportunities of ftriking defcription. And Cymon was formerly a tale of fuch reputation, that, at the revival of letters, it was tranflated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

Whatever fubjects employed his pen, he was ftill improving our measures and embellishing our language.

In this volume are interfperfed fome fhort original poems, which, with his prologues, epilogues, and fongs, may be comprised in Congreve's remark, that even those, if he had written nothing elfe, would have entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.

One compofition must however be distinguished. The ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always confidered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exacteft nicety of art. This is allowed to ftand without a rival. If indeed there is any excellence beyond it, in fome other of Dryden's works that excellence must be found. Compared with the Ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced perhaps fuperiour in the whole; but without any fingle part, equal to the firft ftanza of the other.

It is faid to have coft Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: fome of the lines are without correfpondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving.

His laft ftanza has lefs emotion than the former; but is not lefs elegant in the diction. The conclufion is vicious; the mufick of Timotheus, which raised a mortal to the skies, had only a metaphorical power; that of Cecilia, which drew an angel down, had a real effect: the crown therefore could not reasonably be divided.

IN a general furvey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have a mind very comprehenfive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compofitions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials.

The power that predominated in his intellectual operations, was rather strong reason than quick fenfibility. Upon all occafions that were prefented, he studied rather than felt, and produced fentiments not such as Nature enforces, but meditation fupplies. With the fimple and elemental paffions, as they spring separate in the mind, he feems not much acquainted; and feldom defcribes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of fociety, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life.

What he fays of love may contribute to the explanation of his character;

Love various minds does variously inspire;

It ftirs in gentle bofoms gentle fire,

Like that of incenfe on the altar laid;

But raging flames tempeftuous fouls invade;

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A fire which every windy paffion blows,

With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

Dryden's was not one of the gentle bofoms: Love, as it fubfifts in itfelf, with no tendency but to the perfon loved, and withing only for correfpondent kindnefs; fuch love as fhuts out all other intereft; the Love of the Golden Age, was too foft and fubtle to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervefcence with fome other defires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obftructed by difficulties when it invigorated ambition, or exaf perated revenge.

He is therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had fo little fenfibility of the power of effufions purely natural, that he did not ef teem them in others. Simplicity gave him no pleafure; and for the first part of his life he looked on Otway with contempt, though at last, indeed very late, he confefled that in his play there was Nature, which is the chief beauty.

We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a fervile fubmiffion to an injudicious audience, that filled his plays with falfe magnificence. It was neceffary to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection, or by curiofity; by reviving natural fentiments, or impreffing new appearances of things: fentences were readier at his call than images; he could more eafily fill the ear with fome fplendid novelty, than awaken thofe ideas that flumber in the heart.

The

The favourite exercife of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument might not be too foon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and neceffity, destiny and contingence; thefe he difcuffes in the language of the fchool with fo much profundity, that the terms which he uses are not always understood. It is indeed learning, but learning out of place.

When once he had engaged himself in difputation, thoughts flowed in on either fide: he was now no longer at a lofs; he had always objections and folutions at command; verbaque provifam rem-give him matter for his verfe, and he finds without difficulty verse for his matter.

In Comedy, for which he profeffes himself not na turally qualified, the mirth which he excites will perhaps not be found fo much to arife from any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely diftinguished and diligently purfued, as from incidents and circumftances, artifices and furprizes; from jefts of action rather than of fentiment. What he had of humorous or paffionate, he seems to have had not from nature, but from other poets; if not always as a plagiary, at leaft as an imitator.

Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring fallies of fentiment, in the irregular and excentrick violence of wit. He delighted to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to mingle; to approach the precipice of abfurdity, and hover over the abyfs of unideal vacancy. This inclination fometimes produced nonfenfe, which he knew; as,

Move fwiftly, fun, and fly a lover's pace,
Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.
Amariel flies

To guard thee from the demons of the air;

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My flaming fword above them to difplay,

All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

And fometimes it iffued in abfurdities, of which perhaps he was not conscious :

Then we upon our orb's last verge fhall go,

And fee the ocean leaning on the sky;

From thence our rolling neighbours we fhall know,
And on the lunar world fecurely pry.

These lines have no meaning; but may we not fay, in
imitation of Cowley on another book,

'Tis fo like fenfe 'twill ferve the turn as well?

This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced inany fentiments either great or bulky, and many images either juft or fplendid:

I am as free as Nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of fervitude began,

When wild in woods the noble favage ran.

'Tis but because the Living death ne'er knew,
They fear to prove it as a thing that's new:
Let me th' experiment before you try,

I'll show you firft how eafy 'tis to die.

-There with a foreft of their darts he ftrove,
And stood like Capaneus defying Jove;

With his broad fword the boldeft beating down,
While Fate grew pale left he should win the town,
And turn'd the iron leaves of his dark book

To make new dooms, or mend what it mistook.

-I beg no pity for this mouldering clay;
For if you give it burial, there it takes

Poffeffion of your earth;

If burnt, and scatter'd in the air, the winds

That ftrew my duft diffuse my royalty,

And fpread me'o'er your clime; for where one atom

Of mine fhall light, know there Sebaftian reigns.

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