for. The ftyle of Dryden is capricious and varied, that of Pope is cautious and uniform Dryden obeys the motions of his own mind, Pope constrains his mind to his own rules of compofition. Dryden is fometimes vehement and rapid; Pope is always fmooth, uniform, and gentle. Dryden's page is a natural field, rifing into inequalities, and diverfified by the varied exuberance of abundant vegetation; Pope's is a velvet lawn, fhaven by the scythe, and levelled by the roller. Of genius, that power which conftitutes á poet; that quality without which judgement is cold and knowledge is inert; that energy which collects, combines, amplifies, and animates; the fuperiority muft, with some hefitation, be allowed to Dryden. It is not to be inferred that of this poetical vigour Pope had only a little, because Dryden had more; for every other writer fince Milton must give place to Pope; and even of Dryden it must be faid, that if he has brighter paragraphs, he has not better poems. Dryden's performances were always hafty, either excited by fome external occafion, or extorted by domeftick domeftick neceffity; he compofed without confideration, and published without correction. What his mind could fupply at call, or gather in one excurfion, was all that he fought, and all that he gave. The dilatory caution of Pope enabled him to condenfe his fentiments, to multiply his images, and to accumulate all that study might produce, or chance might fupply. If the flights of Dryden therefore are higher, Pope continues longer on the wing. If of Dryden's fire the blaze is brighter, of Pope's the heat is more regular and conftant. Dryden often furpaffes expectation, and Pope never falls below it. Dryden is read with frequent astonishment, and Pope with perpetual delight. This parallel will, I hope, when it is well confidered, be found juft; and if the reader fhould fufpect me, as I fufpect myself, of fome partial fondness for the memory of Dryden, let him not too haftily condemn me; for meditation and enquiry may, perhaps, fhew him the reasonableness of my de termination. THE THE Works of Pope are now to be dif tinctly examined, not fo much with attention to flight faults or petty beauties, as to the general character and effect of each performance. It seems natural for a young poet to initiate himself by Paftorals, which, not profesfing to imitate real life, require no experience, and, exhibiting only the fimple operation of unmingled paffions, admit no subtle reasoning or deep enquiry. Pope's Pastorals are not however compofed but with close thought; they have reference to the times of the day, the feafons of the and the peyear, riods of human life. The laft, that which turns the attention upon age and death, was the author's favourite. To tell of difappointment and mifery, to thicken the darknefs of futurity, and perplex the labyrinth of uncertainty, has been always a delicious employment of the poets. His preference was probably probably juft. I wish, however, that his fondnefs had not overlooked a line in which the Zephyrs are made to lament in filence. To charge these Paftorals with want of invention, is to require what never was intended. The imitations are fo ambitiously frequent, that the writer evidently means rather to fhew his literature than his wit. It is furely fufficient for an author of fixteen not only to be able to copy the poems of antiquity with judicious felection, but to have obtained fufficient power of language, and skill in metre, to exhibit a series of verfification, which had in English poetry no precedent, nor has fince had an imitation. The defign of Windfor Foreft is evidently derived from Cooper's Hill, with fome attention to Waller's poem on The Park; but Pope cannot be denied to excel his masters in variety and elegance, and the art of interchanging defcription, narrative, and morality. The objection made by Dennis is the want of plan, of a regular fubordination of parts terminating in the principal and original defign. There is this want in most de fcriptive fcriptive poems, because the fcenes, whieh they must exhibit fucceffively, are all subsisting at the fame time, and therefore the order in which they are shewn must by neceffity be arbitrary, and more is not to be expected from the last part than from the first. The attention, therefore, which cannot be detained by fufpenfe, must be excited by diverfity, fuch as his poem offers to its reader. But the defire of diverfity may be too much indulged; the parts of Windfor Foreft which deferve least praise, are those which were added to enliven the ftillness of the scene, the appearance of Father Thames, and the tranfformation of Lodona. Addifon had in his Campaign derided the Rivers that rife from their 00xY beds to tell ftories of heroes, and it is therefore strange that Pope should adopt a fiction not only unnatural but lately cenfured. The story of Lodona is told with great fweetness; but a new metamorphofis is a ready and puerile expedient; nothing is eafier than to tell how a flower was once a blooming virgin, or a rock an obdurate tyrant. The |