Let us then appeal to experience; for by experience, at last, we learn as

well what will please as what will profit. In the battle, his terms seem

to have been blown away; but he deals them liberally in the dock:

So here some pick out bullets from the side,

Some drive old _okum_ through each _seam_ and rift;

Their left hand does the _calking-iron_ guide,

The rattling _mallet_ with the right they lift.

With boiling pitch another near at hand

(From friendly Sweden brought) the _seams in-slops_:

Which, well-laid o'er, the salt sea-waves withstand,

And shake them from the rising beak in drops.

Some the _gall'd_ ropes with dauby _marling_ bind,

Or sear-cloth masts with strong _tarpawling_ coats;

To try new _shrouds_ one mounts into the wind,

And one below, their ease or stiffness notes.

I suppose there is not one term which every reader does not wish

away[121].

His digression to the original and progress of navigation, with his

prospect of the advancement which it shall receive from the Royal

Society, then newly instituted, may be considered as an example seldom

equalled of seasonable excursion and artful return.

One line, however, leaves me discontented; he says, that, by the help of

the philosophers,

Instructed ships shall sail to quick commerce,

By which remotest regions are allied.

Which he is constrained to explain in a note "by a more exact measure of

longitude." It had better become Dryden's learning and genius to have

laboured science into poetry, and have shown, by explaining longitude,

that verse did not refuse the ideas of philosophy.

His description of the Fire is painted by resolute meditation, out of a

mind better formed to reason than to feel. The conflagration of a city,

with all its tumults of concomitant distress, is one of the most dreadful

spectacles which this world can offer to human eyes; yet it seems to

raise little emotion in the breast of the poet; he watches the flame

coolly from street to street, with now a reflection, and now a simile,

till at last he meets the king, for whom he makes a speech, rather

tedious in a time so busy; and then follows again the progress of the

fire.

There are, however, in this part some passages that deserve attention; as

in the beginning:

The diligence of trades and noiseful gain,

And luxury, more late, asleep were laid;

All was the night's, and in her silent reign

No sound the rest of nature did invade

In this deep quiet----

The expression, "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 ghosts of traitors from the bridge descend,

With hold fanatick spectres to rejoice;

About the fire into a dance they bend,

And sing their sabbath notes with feeble voice.

His prediction of the improvements which shall 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 simile that might

have better been omitted.

Dryden, when he wrote this poem, seems not yet fully to have formed his

versification, or settled his system of propriety.

From this time he addicted himself almost wholly to the stage, "to

which," says he, "my genius never much inclined me," merely as the most

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 studied his works with great attention, he settled his

principles of versification in 1676, when he produced the play of Aureng

Zebe; and, according to his own account of the short time in which he

wrote Tyrannick Love, and the State of Innocence, he soon obtained the

full effect of diligence, and added facility to exactness.

Rhyme has been so long banished from the theatre, that we know not its

effect upon the passions of an audience; but it has this convenience,

that sentences stand more independent on each other, and striking

passages are, therefore, easily selected and retained. Thus the

description of night in the Indian Emperor, and the rise and fall of

empire in the Conquest of Granada, are more frequently repeated than any

lines in All for Love, or Don Sebastian.

To search his plays for vigorous sallies and sententious elegancies, or

to fix the dates of any little pieces which he wrote by chance, or by

solicitation, were labour too tedious and minute.

His dramatick labours did not so wholly absorb his thoughts, but that he

promulgated the laws of translation in a preface to the English Epistles

of Ovid; one of which he translated himself, and another in conjunction

with the earl of Mulgrave.

Absalom and Achitophel is a work so well known, that particular

criticism is superfluous. If it be considered as a poem political and

controversial, it will be found to comprise all the excellencies of which

the subject is susceptible; acrimony of censure, elegance of praise,

artful delineation of characters, variety and vigour of sentiment, happy

turns of language, and pleasing harmony of numbers; and all these

raised to such a height as can scarcely be found in any other English

composition.

It is not, however, without faults; some lines are inelegant or improper,

and too many are irreligiously licentious. The original structure of the

poem was defective; allegories drawn to great length will always break;

Charles could not run continually parallel with David.

The subject had likewise another inconvenience; it admitted little

imagery or description; and a long poem of mere sentiments easily becomes

tedious; though all the parts are forcible, and every line kindles new

rapture, the reader, if not relieved by the interposition of something

that sooths the fancy, grows weary of admiration, and defers the rest.

As an approach to historical truth was necessary, the action and

catastrophe were not in the poet's power; there is, therefore, an

unpleasing disproportion between the beginning and the end. We are

alarmed by a faction formed out of many sects various in their

principles, but agreeing in their purpose of mischief, formidable for

their numbers, and strong by their supports, 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 a speech, and

Henceforth a series of new times began.

Who can forbear to think of an enchanted castle, with a wide moat and

lofty battlements, walls of marble and gates of brass, which vanishes at

once into air, when the destined knight blows his horn before it?

In the second part, written by Tate, there is a long insertion, which,

for poignancy of satire, exceeds any part of the former. Personal

resentment, though no laudable motive to satire, can add great force to

general principles. Self-love is a busy prompter.

The Medal, written upon the same principles with Absalom and Achitophel,

but upon a narrower plan, gives less pleasure, though it discovers equal

abilities in the writer. The superstructure cannot extend beyond the

foundation; a single character or incident cannot furnish as many ideas,

as a series of events, or multiplicity of agents. This poem, therefore,

since time has left it to itself, is not much read, nor, perhaps,

generally understood; yet it abounds with touches both of humorous and

serious satire. The picture of a man whose propensions to mischief are

such, that his best actions are but inability of wickedness, is very

skilfully 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 anguish of his soul, he serv'd;

Rewarded faster still than he deserv'd:

Behold him now exalted into trust;

His counsels oft convenient, seldom just.

Ev'n in the most sincere advice he gave,

He had a grudging still to be a knave.

The frauds he learnt in his fanatick years,

Made him uneasy in his lawful gears:

At least as little honest as he could;

And, like white witches, mischievously 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 neither authorized nor

analogical, he calls Augustalis, is not among his happiest 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 seems to look round him for images which he cannot find, and what

he has he distorts by endeavouring to enlarge them. "He is," he says,

"petrified with grief;" but the marble sometimes relents, and trickles in

a joke:

The sons of art all med'cines try'd,

And ev'ry noble remedy apply'd:

With emulation each essay'd

His utmost skill; _nay, more, they prayd;_

Was never losing game with better conduct play'd.

He had been a little inclined to merriment before upon the prayers of

a nation for their dying sovereign; nor was he serious enough to keep

heathen fables out of his religion:

With him th' innumerable crowd of armed prayers

Knock'd at the gates of heav'n, and knock'd aloud;

_The first well-meaning rude petitioners_

All for his life assail'd the throne;

All would have brib'd the skies by off'ring up their own.

So great a throng not heav'n itself could bar;

'Twas almost borne by force, _as in the giants' war._

The pray'rs, at least, for his reprieve were heard:

His death, like Hezekiah's, was deferr'd.

There is, throughout the composition, a desire of splendour without

wealth. In the conclusion he seems too much pleased with the prospect of

the new reign to have lamented his old master with much sincerity.

He did not miscarry in this attempt for want of skill either in lyrick or

elegiack poetry. His poem on the death of Mrs. Killigrew is, undoubtedly,

the noblest ode that our language ever has produced. The first part flows

with a torrent of enthusiasm: "Fervet immensusque ruit." All the stanzas,

indeed, are not equal. An imperial crown cannot be one continued diamond;

the gems must be held together by some less valuable matter.

In his first ode for Cecilia's day, which is lost in the splendour of the

second, there are passages which would have dignified any other poet. The

first stanza is vigorous and elegant, though the word _diapason_ is too

technical, and the rhymes are too remote from one another:

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began:

When nature underneath a heap of jarring atoms lay,

And could not heave her head,

The tuneful voice was heard from high.

Arise, ye more than dead.

Then cold and hot, and moist and dry,

In order to their stations leap,

And musick's power obey.

From harmony, from heavenly harmony,

This universal frame began;

From harmony to harmony

Through all the compass of the notes it ran,

The diapason closing full in man.

The conclusion is likewise striking; but it includes an image so awful in

itself, that it can owe little to poetry; and I could wish the antithesis

of _musick untuning_ had found some other place:

As from the power of sacred lays

The spheres began to move.

And sung the great creator's praise

To all the bless'd above:

So, when the last and dreadful hour

This crumbling pageant shall devour,

The trumpet shall be heard on high,

The dead shall live, the living die,

And musick shall untune the sky.

Of his skill in elegy he has given a specimen in his Eleonora, of which

the following lines discover their author:

Though all these rare endowments of the mind

Were in a narrow space of life confin'd,

The figure was with full perfection crown'd;

Though not so large an orb, as truly round:

As when in glory, through the publick place,

The spoils of conquer'd nations were to pass,

And but one day for triumph was allow'd,

The consul was constrain'd his pomp to crowd;

And so the swift procession hurry'd on,

That all, tho' not distinctly, might be shown;

So, in the straiten'd bounds of life confin'd,

She gave but glimpses of her glorious mind:

And multitudes of virtues pass'd along;

Each pressing foremost in the mighty throng,

Ambitious to be seen, and then make room

For greater multitudes that were to come.

Yet unemployed no minute slipp'd away;

Moments were precious in so short a stay.

The haste of heaven to have her was so great,

That some were single acts, though each complete;

And ev'ry act stood ready to repeat.

This piece, however, is not without its faults; there is so much likeness

in the initial comparison, that there is no illustration. As a king would

be lamented, Eleonora was lamented:

As, when some great and gracious monarch dies,

Soft whispers, first, and mournful murmurs rise

Among the sad attendants; then the sound

Soon gathers voice, and spreads the news around,

Through town and country, till the dreadful blast

Is blown to distant colonies at last;

Who then, perhaps, were off'ring vows in vain,

For his long life, and for his happy reign:

So slowly, by degrees, unwilling fame

Did matchless Eleonora's fate proclaim,

Till publick as the loss the news became.

This is little better than to say in praise of a shrub, that it is as

green as a tree; or of a brook, that it waters a garden, as a river

waters a country.

Dryden confesses that he did not know the lady whom he celebrates: the

praise being, therefore, inevitably general, fixes no impression upon the

reader, nor excites any tendency to love, nor much desire of imitation.

Knowledge of the subject is to the poet what durable materials are to the

architect.

The Religio Laici, which borrows its title from the Religio Medici of

Browne, is almost the only work of Dryden which can be considered as a

voluntary effusion; in this, therefore, it might be hoped, that the full

effulgence of his genius would be found. But, unhappily, the subject

is rather argumentative than poetical; he intended only a specimen of

metrical disputation:

And this unpolish'd rugged verse I chose

As fittest for discourse, and nearest prose.

This, however, is a composition of great excellence in its kind, in which

the familiar is very properly diversified with the solemn, and the grave

with the humorous; in which metre has neither weakened the force, nor

clouded the perspicuity of argument; nor will it be easy to find another

example equally happy of this middle kind of writing, which, though

prosaick in some parts, rises to high poetry in others, and neither

towers to the skies, nor creeps along the ground.

Of the same kind, or not far distant from it, is the Hind and Panther,

the longest of all Dryden's original poems; an allegory intended to

comprise and to decide the controversy between the Romanists and

protestants. The scheme of the work is injudicious and incommodious; for

what can be more absurd, than that one beast should counsel another to

rest her faith upon a pope and council? He seems well enough skilled in

the usual topicks of argument, endeavours to show the necessity of an

infallible judge, and reproaches the reformers with want of unity; but

is weak enough to ask, why, since we see without knowing how, we may not

have an infallible judge without knowing where?

The hind, at one time, is afraid to drink at the common brook, because

she may be worried; but, walking home with the panther, talks by the way

of the Nicene fathers, and at last declares herself to be the catholick

church.

This absurdity was very properly ridiculed in the City Mouse and Country

Mouse of Montague and Prior; and, in the detection and censure of

the incongruity of the fiction, chiefly consists the value of their

performance, which, whatever reputation it might obtain by the help of

temporary passions, seems, to readers almost a century distant, not very

forcible or animated.

Pope, whose judgment was, perhaps, a little bribed by the subject,

used to mention this poem as the most correct specimen of Dryden's

versification. It was, indeed, written when he had completely formed

his manner, and may be supposed to exhibit, negligence excepted, his

deliberate and ultimate scheme of metre. We may, therefore, reasonably

infer, that he did not approve the perpetual uniformity which confines

the sense to couplets, since he has broken his lines in the initial

paragraph:

A milk-white hind, immortal and unchang'd.

Fed on the lawns, and in the forest rang'd:

Without unspotted, innocent within,

She fear'd no danger, for she knew no sin.

Yet had she oft been chas'd with horns and hounds,

And Scythian shafts, and many winged wounds

Aim'd at her heart; was often forc'd to fly,

And doom'd to death, though fated not to die.

These lines are lofty, elegant, and musical, notwithstanding the

interruption of the pause, of which the effect is rather increase of

pleasure by variety, than offence by ruggedness.

To the first part it was his intention, he says, "to give the majestick

turn of heroick poesy;" and, perhaps, he might have executed his design

not unsuccessfully, had not an opportunity of satire, which he cannot

forbear, fallen sometimes in his way. The character of a presbyterian,

whose emblem is the wolf, is not very heroically majestick:

More haughty than the rest, the wolfish race

Appear with belly gaunt and famish'd face:

Never was so deform'd a beast of grace.

His ragged tail betwixt his legs he wears,

Close clapp'd for shame; but his rough crest he rears,

And pricks up his predestinating ears.

His general character of the other sorts of beasts that never go to

church, though sprightly and keen, has, however, not much of heroick

poesy:

These are the chief; to number o'er the rest,

And stand like Adam naming ev'ry beast,

Were weary work; nor will the muse describe

A slimy-born, and sun-begotten tribe,

Who, far from steeples and their sacred sound,

In fields their sullen conventicles found.

These gross, half-animated lumps I leave;

Nor can I think what thoughts they can conceive;

But, if they think at all, 'tis sure no higher

Than matter, put in motion, may aspire;

Souls that can scarce ferment their mass of clay,

So drossy, so divisible are they,

As would but serve pure bodies for allay:

Such souls as shards produce, such beetle things

As only buzz to heaven with evening wings;

Strike in the dark, offending but by chance;

Such are the blindfold blows of ignorance.

They know no being, and but hate a name;

To them the hind and panther are the same.

One more instance, and that taken from the narrative part, where style

was more in his choice, will show how steadily he kept his resolution of

heroick dignity:

For when the herd, suffic'd, did late repair

To ferny heaths and to their forest lair,

She made a mannerly excuse to stay,

Proff'ring the hind to wait her half the way;

That, since the sky was clear, an hour of talk

Might help her to beguile the tedious walk.

With much good-will the motion was embrac'd,

To chat awhile on their adventures past:

Nor had the grateful hind so soon forgot

Her friend and fellow-suff'rer in the plot.

Yet, wond'ring how of late she grew estrang'd,

Her forehead cloudy and her count'nance chang'd,

She thought this hour th' occasion would present

To learn her secret cause of discontent,

Which well she hop'd might be with ease redress'd,

Consid'ring her a well-bred civil beast.

And more a gentlewoman than the rest.

After some common talk what rumours ran,

The lady of the spotted muff began.

The second and third parts he professes to have reduced to diction more

familiar and more suitable to dispute and conversation; the difference is

not, however, very easily perceived; the first has familiar, and the two

others have sonorous, lines. The original incongruity runs through the

whole: the king is now Caesar, and now the Lion; and the name Pan is

given to the supreme being.

But when this constitutional absurdity is forgiven, the poem must be

confessed to be written with great smoothness of metre, a wide extent of

knowledge, and an abundant multiplicity of images; the controversy is

embellished with pointed sentences, diversified by illustrations, and

enlivened by sallies of invective. Some of the facts to which allusions

are made are now become obscure, and, perhaps, there may be many

satirical passages little understood.

As it was by its nature a work of defiance, a composition which would

naturally be examined with the utmost acrimony of criticism, it was

probably laboured with uncommon attention; and there are, indeed, few

negligencies in the subordinate parts. The original impropriety, and the

subsequent unpopularity of the subject, added to the ridiculousness of

its first elements, has sunk it into neglect; but it may be usefully

studied, as an example of poetical ratiocination, in which the argument

suffers little from the metre.

In the poem on the Birth of the Prince of Wales, nothing is very

remarkable but the exorbitant adulation, and that insensibility of

the precipice on which the king was then standing, which the laureate

apparently shared with the rest of the courtiers. A few months cured him

of controversy, dismissed him from court, and made him again a playwright

and translator.

Of Juvenal there had been a translation by Stapylton, and another by

Holiday; neither of them is very poetical. Stapylton is more smooth; and

Holiday's is more esteemed for the learning of his notes. A new version

was proposed to the poets of that time, and undertaken by them in

conjunction. The main design was conducted by Dryden, whose reputation

was such that no man was unwilling to serve the muses under him.

The general character of this translation will be given when it is

said to preserve the wit, but to want the dignity of the original. The

peculiarity of Juvenal is a mixture of gaiety and stateliness, of pointed

sentences and declamatory grandeur. His points have not been neglected;

but his grandeur none of the band seemed to consider as necessary to be

imitated, except Creech, who undertook the thirteenth satire. It is,

therefore, perhaps, possible to give a better representation of that

great satirist, even in those parts which Dryden himself has translated,

some passages excepted, which will never be excelled.

With Juvenal was published Persius, translated wholly by Dryden. This

work, though like all the other productions of Dryden it may have shining

parts, seems to have been written merely for wages, in an uniform

mediocrity without any eager endeavour after excellence, or laborious

effort of the mind.

There wanders an opinion among the readers of poetry that one of

these satires is an exercise of the school. Dryden says, that he once

translated it at school; but not that he preserved or published the

juvenile performance.

Not long afterwards he undertook, perhaps, the most arduous work of its

kind, a translation of Virgil, for which he had shown how well he was

qualified, by his version of the Pollio, and two episodes, one of Nisus

and Euryalus, the other of Mezentius and Lausus.

In the comparison of Homer and Virgil, the discriminative excellence of

Homer is elevation and comprehension of thought, and that of Virgil is

grace and splendour of diction. The beauties of Homer are, therefore,

difficult to be lost, and those of Virgil difficult to be retained. The

massy trunk of sentiment is safe by its solidity, but the blossoms of

elocution easily drop away. The author, having the choice of his own

images, selects those which he can best adorn; the translator must, at

all hazards, follow his original, and express thoughts which, perhaps,

he would not have chosen. When to this primary difficulty is added the

inconvenience of a language so much inferiour in harmony to the Latin, it

cannot be expected that they who read the Georgicks and the Aeneid should

be much delighted with any version.

All these obstacles Dryden saw, and all these he determined to encounter.

The expectation of his work was undoubtedly great; the nation considered

its honour as interested in the event. One gave him the different

editions of his author, and another helped him in the subordinate parts.

The arguments of the several books were given him by Addison.

The hopes of the publick were riot disappointed. He produced, says Pope,

"the most noble and spirited translation that I know in any language." It

certainly excelled whatever had appeared in English, and appears to have

satisfied his friends, and, for the most part, to have silenced his

enemies. Milbourne, indeed, a clergyman, attacked it; but his outrages

seem to be the ebullitions of a mind agitated by stronger resentment than

bad poetry can excite, and previously resolved not to be pleased.

His criticism extends only to the Preface, Pastorals, and Georgicks; and,

as he professes to give his antagonist an opportunity of reprisal, he has

added his own version of the first and fourth Pastorals, and the first

Georgick. The world has forgotten his book; but, since his attempt has

given him a place in literary history, I will preserve a specimen of his

criticism, by inserting his remarks on the invocation before the first

Georgick, and of his poetry, by annexing his own version.

Ver. 1.

"What makes a plenteous harvest, when to turn

The fruitful soil, and when to sow the corn.

"It's _unlucky_, they say, _to stumble at the threshold_: but what has

a _plenteous harvest_ to do here? Virgil would not pretend to prescribe

_rules_ for _that_ which depends not on the _husbandman's_ care, but the

_disposition of heaven_ altogether. Indeed, the _plenteous crop_ depends

somewhat on the _good method of tillage_; and where the _land'_s

ill-manur'd, the _corn_, without a miracle, can be but _indifferent_; but

the _harvest_ may be _good_, which is its _properest_ epithet, tho' the

_husbandman's skill_ were never so _indifferent_. The next _sentence_

is _too literal_: and _when to plough_ had been _Virgil's_ meaning, and

intelligible to every body; and _when to sow the corn_, is a needless

_addition_.

Ver. 3.

"The care of sheep, of oxen, and of kine,

And when to geld the lambs, and shear the swine,

"would as well have fallen under the _cura boum, qui cultus habendo sit

pecori_, as Mr. D.'s _deduction_ of particulars.

Ver. 5

"The birth and genius of the frugal bee

I sing, Maecenas, and I sing to thee.

"But where did _experientia_ ever signify _birth andgenius_? or what

ground was there for such a _figure_ in this place? How much more manly

is Mr. Ogylby's version?

"What makes rich grounds, in what celestial signs

'Tis good to plough, and marry elms with vines:

What best fits cattle, what with sheep agrees,

And several arts improving frugal bees;

I sing, Maecenas.

"Which four lines, though faulty enough, are yet much more to the purpose

than Mr. D.'s six.

Ver. 22.

"From fields and mountains to my song repair.

"For _patrium linquens nemus, saltusque Lycaei_--Very well explained!

Ver. 23, 24.

"Inventor Pallas, of the fatt'ning oil,

Thou founder of the plough, and ploughman's toil!

"Written as if _these_ had been _Pallas's invention_. The _ploughman's

toil's_ impertinent.

Ver. 25.

"The shroud-like cypress----

"Why _shroud-like_? Is a _cypress_ pulled up by the _roots_, which the

_sculpture_ in the _last Eclogue_ fills _Silvanus's_ hand with, so very

like a _shroud_? Or did not Mr. D. think of that kind of _cypress_ used

often for _scarves and hatbands_, at funerals formerly, or for _widows'

veils_, &c. ? If so, 'twas a _deep, good thought_.

Ver. 26.

"That wear

The royal honours, and increase the year.

"What's meant by _increasing the year_? Did the _gods_ or _goddesses_

add more _months_, or _days_, or _hours_, to it? Or how can _arva tueri_

signify to _wear rural honours_? Is this to _translate_, or _abuse_ an

_author_? The next _couplet_ is borrowed from Ogylby, I suppose, because

_less to the purpose_ than ordinary.

Ver. 33.

"The patron of the world, and Rome's peculiar guard.

"_Idle_, and none of Virgil's, no more than the sense of the _precedent

couplet_; so again, _he interpolates Virgil_ with that and _the round

circle of the year to guide powerful of blessings, which thou strew'st

around_; a ridiculous _Latinism_, and an _impertinent addition_; indeed

the whole _period_ is but one piece of _absurdity_ and _nonsense_, as

those who lay it with the _original_ must find.

Ver. 42, 43.

"And Neptune shall resign the fasces of the sea.

"Was he _consul_ or _dictator_ there?

"And wat'ry virgins for thy bed shall strive.

"Both absurd _interpolations_."

Ver. 47, 48.

"Where in the void of heaven a place is free.

"_Ah, happy_ D----n, _were_ that place for _thee_!

"But where is _that void_? Or, what does our _translator_ mean by it? He

knows what Ovid says God did to prevent such a void in heaven; perhaps

this was then forgotten: but Virgil talks more sensibly.

Ver. 49.

"The scorpion ready to receive thy laws.

"No, he would not then have _gotten out of his way_ so fast.

Ver. 56.

"Though Proserpine affects her silent seat.

"What made her then so _angry_ with _Ascalaphus_, for preventing her

return? She was now mus'd to _Patience_ under the _determinations of

Fate_, rather than _fond_ of her _residence_,

Ver. 61, 62, 63.

"Pity the poet's and the ploughman's cares,

Interest thy greatness in our mean affairs,

And use thyself betimes to hear our prayers.

"Which is such a wretched _perversion_ of Virgil's _noble thought_ as

Vicars would have blushed at; but Mr. Ogylby makes us some amends, by his

better lines:

"O, wheresoe'er thou art, from thence incline,

And grant assistance to my bold design!

Pity, with me, poor husbandmen's affairs,

And now, as if translated, hear our prayers.

"This is _sense_, and _to the purpose_: the other, poor _mistaken

stuff_."

Such were the strictures of Milbourne, who found few abetters, and of

whom it may be reasonably imagined, that many who favoured his design

were ashamed of his insolence.

When admiration had subsided, the translation was more coolly examined,

and found, like all others, to be sometimes erroneous, and sometimes

licentious. Those who could find faults, thought they could avoid them;

and Dr. Brady attempted, in blank verse, a translation of the Aeneid,

which, when dragged into the world, did not live long enough to cry,

I have never seen it; but that such a version there is, or has been,

perhaps some old catalogue informed me.

With not much better success, Trapp, when his Tragedy and his Prelections

had given him reputation, attempted another blank version of the Aeneid;

to which, notwithstanding the slight regard with which it was treated, he

had afterwards perseverance enough to add the Eclogues and Georgicks. His

book may continue its existence as long as it is the clandestine refuge

of schoolboys.

Since the English ear has been accustomed to the mellifluence of Pope's

numbers, and the diction of poetry has become more splendid, new attempts

have been made to translate Virgil; and all his works have been attempted

by men better qualified to contend with Dryden. I will not engage myself

in an invidious comparison by opposing one passage to another; a work of

which there would be no end, and which might be often offensive without

use.

It is not by comparing line with line, that the merit of great works is

to be estimated, but by their general effects and ultimate result. It is

easy to note a weak line, and write one more vigorous in its place; to

find a happiness of expression in the original, and transplant it by

force into the version: but what is given to the parts may be subducted

from the whole, and the reader may be weary, though the critick may

commend. Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by

their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good

in vain, which the reader throws away. He only is the master, who keeps

the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness,

and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion

is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon

departing day [122].

By his proportion of this predomination I will consent that Dryden should

be tried; of this, which, in opposition to reason, makes Ariosto the

darling and the pride of Italy; of this, which, in defiance of criticism,

continues Shakespeare the sovereign of the drama.

His last work was his Fables, in which he gave us the first example of a

mode of writing, which the Italians call _refaccimento_, a renovation

of ancient writers, by modernizing their language. Thus the old poem

of Boiardo has been new dressed by Domenichi and Berni. The works of

Chaucer, upon which this kind of rejuvenescence has been bestowed by

Dryden, require little criticism. The tale of the Cock seems hardly

worth revival; and the story of Palamon and Arcite, containing an action

unsuitable to the times in which it is placed, can hardly be suffered to

pass without censure 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 seems to have revived.

Of the three pieces borrowed from Boccace, Sigismunda may be defended by

the celebrity of the story. Theodore and Honoria, though it contains not

much moral, yet afforded opportunities of striking description. And Cymon

was formerly a tale of such reputation, that, at the revival of letters,

it was translated into Latin by one of the Beroalds.

Whatever subjects employed his pen, he was still improving our measures

and embellishing our language.

In this volume are interspersed some short original poems, which, with

his prologues, epilogues, and songs, may be comprised in Congreve's

remark, that even those, if he had written nothing else, would have

entitled him to the praise of excellence in his kind.

One composition must, however, be distinguished. The ode for St.

Cecilia's Day, perhaps the last effort of his poetry, has been always

considered as exhibiting the highest flight of fancy, and the exactest

nicety of art. This is allowed to stand without a rival. If, indeed,

there is any excellence beyond it, in some other of Dryden's works, that

excellence must be found. Compared with the ode on Killigrew, it may be

pronounced, perhaps, superiour in the whole; but without any single part

equal to the first stanza of the other.

It is said to have cost Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want

its negligences: some of the lines are without correspondent 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 last stanza has less emotion than the former; but it is not less

elegant in the diction. The conclusion is vitious; the musick 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 survey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have a mind very

comprehensive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His

compositions 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 sensibility. Upon all occasions that were

presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced sentiments not

such as nature enforces, but meditation supplies. With the simple and

elemental passions, as they spring separate in the mind, he seems not

much acquainted; and seldom describes them but as they are complicated

by the various relations of society, and confused in the tumults and

agitations of life.

What he says of love may contribute to the explanation of his character:

Love various minds does variously inspire;

It stirs in gentle bosoms gentle fire,

Like that of incense on the altar laid;

But raging flames tempestuous souls invade:

A fire which ev'ry windy passion blows,

With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows.

Dryden's was not one of the "gentle bosoms:" love, as it subsists in

itself, with no tendency but to the person loved, and wishing only for

correspondent kindness; such love as shuts out all other interest; the

love of the golden age, was too soft and subtile to put his faculties in

motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervescence with

some other desires; when it was inflamed by rivalry, or obstructed by

difficulties: when it invigorated ambition, or exasperated revenge.

He is, therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often

pathetick; and had so little sensibility of the power of effusions purely

natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no

pleasure; and, for the first part of his life, he looked on Otway with

contempt, though, at last, indeed very late, he confessed 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 servile submission to an injudicious

audience, that filled his plays with false magnificence. It was necessary

to fix attention; and the mind can be captivated only by recollection,

or by curiosity; by reviving natural sentiments, or impressing new

appearances of things. Sentences were readier at his call than images; he

could more easily fill the ear with some splendid novelty, than awaken

those ideas that slumber in the heart.

The favourite exercise of his mind was ratiocination; and, that argument

might not be too soon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and

necessity, destiny and contingence; these he discusses in the language of

the school with so 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 disputation, thoughts flowed in on

either side: he was now no longer at a loss; he had always objections and

solutions at command; "verbaque provisam rem"--give him matter for his

verse, and he finds, without difficulty, verse for his matter.

In comedy, for which he professes himself not naturally qualified, the

mirth which he excites will, perhaps, not be found so much to arise from

any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely distinguished and

diligently pursued, as from incidents and circumstances, artifices and

surprises; from jests of action rather than of sentiment. What he had of

humorous or passionate, he seems to have had not from nature, but from

other poets; if not always as a plagiary, at least as an imitator.

Next to argument, his delight was in wild and daring sallies of

sentiment, in the irregular and eccentrick violence of wit. He delighted

to tread upon the brink of meaning, where light and darkness begin to

mingle; to approach the precipice of absurdity, and hover over the abyss

of unideal vacancy. This inclination sometimes produced nonsense, which

he knew; as,

Move swiftly, sun, and fly a lover's pace,

Leave weeks and months behind thee in thy race.

Amamel flies

To guard thee from the demons of the air;

My flaming sword above them to display,

All keen, and ground upon the edge of day.

And sometimes it issued in absurdities, of which, perhaps, he was not

conscious:

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

And see the ocean leaning on the sky;

From thence our rolling neighbours we shall know,

And on the lunar world securely pry.

These lines have no meaning; but may we not say, in imitation of Cowley

on another book,

'Tis so like _sense_ 'twill serve the turn as well?

This endeavour after the grand and the new, produced sentiments either

great or bulky, and many images either just or splendid:

I am as free as nature first made man,

Ere the base laws of servitude began,

When wild in woods the noble savage 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 first how easy 'tis to die.

--There with a forest of their darts he strove,

And stood like Capaneus defying Jove,

With his broad sword the boldest beating down,

While fate grew pale, lest 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

Possession of your earth;

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

That strew my dust diffuse my royalty,

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

Of mine shall light, know there Sebastian reigns.

Of these quotations the two first may be allowed to be great, the two

latter only tumid.

Of such selection there is no end. I will add only a few more passages;

of which the first, though it may, perhaps, not be quite clear in prose,

is not too obscure for poetry, as the meaning that it has is noble[123]:

No, there is a necessity in fate,

Why still the brave bold man is fortunate;

He keeps his object ever full in sight;

And that assurance holds him firm and right;

True, 'tis a narrow way that leads to bliss,

But right before there is no precipice;

Fear makes men look aside, and so their footing miss.

Of the images which the two following citations afford, the first is

elegant, the second magnificent; whether either be just, let the reader

judge:

What precious drops are these,

Which silently each other's track pursue,

Bright as young diamonds in their infant dew?

Resign your castle----

--Enter, brave sir; for, when you speak the word,

The gates shall open of their own accord;

The genius of the place its lord shall meet,

And bow its tow'ry forehead at your feet.

These bursts of extravagance, Dryden calls the "Dalilahs" of the theatre;

and owns that many noisy lines of Maximin and Almanzor call out for

vengeance upon him: "but I knew," says he, "that they were bad enough to

please, even when I wrote them." There is, surely, reason to suspect that

he pleased himself, as well as his audience; and that these, like the

harlots of other men, had his love, though not his approbation.

He had, sometimes, faults of a less generous and splendid kind. He

makes, like almost all other poets, very frequent use of mythology, and

sometimes connects religion and fable too closely without distinction.

He descends to display his knowledge with pedantick ostentation; as

when, in translating Virgil, he says, "tack to the larboard,"--and "veer

starboard;" and talks, in another work, of "virtue spooning before the

wind."--His vanity now and then betrays his ignorance:

They nature's king through nature's opticks view'd;

Revers'd, they view'd him lessen'd to their eyes.

He had heard of reversing a telescope, and unluckily reverses the object.

He is, sometimes, unexpectedly mean. When he describes the supreme being

as moved by prayer to stop the fire of London, what is his expression?

A hollow crystal pyramid he takes,

In firmamental waters dipp'd above,

Of this a broad _extinguisher_ he makes,

And _hoods_ the flames that to their quarry strove.

When he describes the last day, and the decisive tribunal, he

intermingles this image:

When rattling bones together fly,

From the four quarters of the sky.

It was, indeed, never in his power to resist the temptation of a jest. In

his elegy on Cromwell:

No sooner was the Frenchman's cause embrac'd,

Than the _light monsieur_ the _grave don_ outweigh'd;

His fortune turn'd the scale----

He had a vanity, unworthy of his abilities, to show, as may be suspected,

the rank of the company with whom he lived, by the use of French

words, which had then crept into conversation; such as _fraicheur_ for

_coolness, fougue_ for _turbulence_, and a few more, none of which the

language has incorporated or retained. They continue only where they

stood first, perpetual warnings to future innovators.

These are his faults of affectation; his faults of negligence are beyond

recital. Such is the unevenness of his compositions, that ten lines are

seldom found together without something of which the reader is ashamed.

Dryden was no rigid judge of his own pages; he seldom struggled after

supreme excellence, but snatched in haste what was within his reach; and

when he could content others, was himself contented. He did not keep

present to his mind an idea of pure perfection; nor compare his works,

such as they were, with what they might be made. He knew to whom he

should be opposed. He had more musick than Waller, more vigour than

Donham, and more nature than Cowley; and from his contemporaries he was

in no danger. Standing, therefore, in the highest place, he had no care

to rise by contending with himself; but while there was no name above his

own, was willing to enjoy fame on the easiest terms.

He was no lover of labour. What he thought sufficient, he did not stop

to make better; and allowed himself to leave many parts unfinished, in

confidence that the good lines would overbalance the bad. What he had

once written, he dismissed from his thoughts; and, I believe, there is no

example to be found of any correction or improvement made by him after

publication. The hastiness of his productions might be the effect of

necessity; but his subsequent neglect could hardly have any other cause

than impatience of study.

What can be said of his versification, will be little more than a

dilatation of the praise given it by Pope:

Waller was smooth; but Dryden taught to join

The varying verse, the full resounding line,

The long majestick march, and energy divine.

Some improvements had been already made in English numbers; but the full

force of our language was not yet felt; the verse that was smooth was

commonly feeble. If Cowley had sometimes a finished line, he had it by

chance. Dryden knew how to choose the flowing and the sonorous words; to

vary the pauses, and adjust the accents; to diversify the cadence, and

yet preserve the smoothness of his metre.

Of triplets and alexandrines, though he did not introduce the use, he

established it. The triplet has long subsisted among us. Dryden seems not

to have traced it higher than to Chapman's Homer; but it is to be found

in Phaer's Virgil, written in the reign of Mary; and in Hall's Satires,

published five years before the death of Elizabeth.

The alexandrine was, I believe, first used by Spenser, for the sake

of closing his stanza with a fuller sound. We had a longer measure of

fourteen syllables, into which the Aeneid was translated by Phaer, and

other works of the ancients by other writers; of which Chapman's Iliad

was, I believe, the last.

The two first lines of Phaer's third Aeneid will exemplify this measure:

When Asia's state was overthrown, and Priam's kingdom stout,

All guiltless, by the power of gods above was rooted out.

As these lines had their break, or caesura, always at the eighth syllable,

it was thought, in time, commodious to divide them: and quatrains of

lines, alternately, consisting of eight and six syllables, make the most

soft and pleasing of our lyrick measures; as,

Relentless time, destroying pow'r,

Which stone and brass obey,

Who giv'st to ev'ry flying hour

To work some new decay.

In the alexandrine, when its power was once felt, some poems, as

Drayton's Polyolbion, were wholly written; and sometimes the measures of

twelve and fourteen syllables were interchanged with one another. Cowley

was the first that inserted the alexandrine at pleasure among the heroick

lines of ten syllables, and from him Dryden professes to have adopted

it[124].

The triplet and alexandrine are not universally approved. Swift always

censured them, and wrote some lines to ridicule them. In examining

their propriety, it is to be considered that the essence of verse is

regularity, and its ornament is variety. To write verse, is to dispose

syllables and sounds harmonically by some known and settled rule; a rule,

however, lax enough to substitute similitude for identity, to admit

change without breach of order, and to relieve the ear without

disappointing it. Thus a Latin hexameter is formed from dactyls and

spondees, differently combined; the English heroick admits of acute or

grave syllables, variously disposed. The Latin never deviates into seven

feet, or exceeds the number of seventeen syllables; but the English

alexandrine breaks the lawful bounds, and surprises the reader with two

syllables more than he expected.

The effect of the triplet is the same: the ear has been accustomed to

expect a new rhyme in every couplet; but is on a sudden surprised with

three rhymes together, to which the reader could not accommodate his

voice, did he not obtain notice of the change from the braces of the

margins. Surely there is something unskilful in the necessity of such

mechanical direction.

Considering the metrical art simply as a science, and, consequently,

excluding all casualty, we must allow that triplets and alexandrines,

inserted by caprice, are interruptions of that constancy to which science

aspires. And though the variety which they produce may very justly be

desired, yet, to make our poetry exact, there ought to be some stated

mode of admitting them.

But till some such regulation can be formed, I wish them still to be

retained in their present state. They are sometimes grateful to the

reader, and sometimes convenient to the poet. Fenton was of opinion, that

Dryden was too liberal, and Pope too sparing, in their use.

The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, and he valued himself for his

readiness in finding them; but he is sometimes open to objection.

It is the common practice of our poets to end the second line with a weak

or grave syllable:

Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,

Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.

Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in the first:

Laugh all the powers that favour _tyranny_,

And all the standing army of the sky.

Sometimes he concludes a period or paragraph with the first line of a

couplet, which, though the French seem to do it without irregularity,

always displeases in English poetry.

The alexandrine, though much his favourite, is not always very diligently

fabricated by him. It invariably requires a break at the sixth syllable;

a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden

sometimes neglected:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.

Of Dryden's works it was said by Pope, that he "could select from them

better specimens of every mode of poetry than any other English writer

could supply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched

his language with such variety of models. To him we owe the improvement,

perhaps the completion, of our metre, the refinement of our language, and

much of the correctness of our sentiments. By him we are taught "sapere

et fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has

reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be, perhaps, maintained that he was

the first who joined argument with poetry. He showed us the true bounds

of a translator's liberty. What was said of Rome, adorned by Augustus,

may be applied by an easy metaphor to English poetry, embellished by

Dryden, "lateritiam invenit, marmoream reliquit." He found it brick, and

he left it marble.

The invocation before the Georgicks is here inserted from Mr. Milbourne's

version, that, according to his own proposal, his verses may be compared

with those which he censures:

What makes the richest _tilth_, beneath what signs

To _plough_, and when to match your _elms and vines_;

What care with _flocks_, and what with _herds_ agrees,

And all the management of frugal _bees_;

I sing, Maecenas! Ye immensely clear,

Vast orbs of light, which guide the rolling year;

Bacchus, and mother Ceres, if by you

We fatt'ning _corn_ for hungry _mast_ pursue,

If, taught by you, we first the _cluster_ prest,

And _thin cold streams_ with _sprightly juice_ refresht;

Ye _fawns_, the present _numens_ of the field,

_Wood nymphs_ and _fawns_, your kind assistance yield;

Your gifts I sing! And thou, at whose fear'd stroke

From rending earth the fiery _courser_ broke,

Great Neptune, O assist my artful song!

And thou to whom the woods and groves belong,

Whose snowy heifers on her flow'ry plains

In mighty herds the Caean isle maintains!

Pan, happy shepherd, if thy cares divine

E'er to improve thy Maenalas incline,

Leave thy _Lycaean wood_ and _native grove_,

And with thy lucky smiles our work approve!

Be Pallas too, sweet oil's inventor, kind;

And he who first the crooked _plough_ design'd!

Sylvanus, god of all the woods, appear,

Whose hands a new-drawn tender _cypress_ bear!

Ye _gods_ and _goddesses_, who e'er with love

Would guard our pastures and our fields improve!

You, who new plants from unknown lands supply,

And with condensing clouds obscure the sky,

And drop 'em softly thence in fruitful show'rs;

Assist my enterprise, ye gentler pow'rs!

And thou, great Caesar! though we know not yet

Among what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty seat;

Whether thou'lt be the kind _tutelar_ god

Of thy own Rome; or with thy awful nod

Guide the vast world, while thy great hand shall bear

The fruits and seasons of the turning year,

And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles wear;

Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway,

And seamen only to thyself shall pray,

Thule, the farthest island, kneel to thee,

And, that thou may'st her son by marriage be,

Tethys will for the happy purchase yield

To make a _dowry_ of her wat'ry field;

Whether thou'lt add to heaven a _brighter sign_,

And o'er the _summer months_ serenely shine;

Where between Cancer and Erigone,

There yet remains a spacious _room_ for thee;

Where the hot _Scorpion_ too his arms declines,

And more to thee than half his _arch_ resigns;

Whate'er thou'lt be; for sure the realms below

No just pretence to thy command can show:

No such ambition sways thy vast desires,

Though Greece her own _Elysian fields_ admires.

And now, at last, contented Proserpine

Can all her mother's earnest pray'rs decline.

Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course;

And with thy smiles our bold attempts enforce;

With me th' unknowing _rustics_' wants relieve,

And, though on earth, our sacred vows receive!

Mr. Dryden, having received from Rymer his Remarks on the Tragedies of

the last Age, wrote observations on the blank leaves; which, having been

in the possession of Mr. Garrick, are, by his favour, communicated to the

publick, that no particle of Dryden may be lost:

"That we may the less wonder why pity and terrour are not now the only

springs on which our tragedies move, and that Shakespeare may be more

excused, Rapin confesses that the French tragedies, now all run on the

_tendre_; and gives the reason, because love is the passion which most

predominates in our souls, and that, therefore, the passions represented

become insipid, unless they are conformable to the thoughts of the

audience. But it is to be concluded, that this passion works not now

amongst the French so strongly as the other two did amongst the ancients.

Amongst us, who have a stronger genius for writing, the operations from

the writing are much stronger; for the raising of Shakespeare's passions

is more from the excellency of the words and thoughts, than the justness

of the occasion; and if he has been able to pick single occasions, he

has never founded the whole reasonably: yet, by the genius of poetry in

writing, he has succeeded.

"Rapin attributes more to the _dictio_, that is, to the words and

discourse of a tragedy, than Aristotle has done, who places them in the

last rank of beauties; perhaps, only last in order, because they are the

last product of the design, of the disposition or connexion of its

parts; of the characters, of the manners of those characters, and of the

thoughts proceeding from those manners. Rapin's words are remarkable:

'Tis not the admirable intrigue, the surprising events, and extraordinary

incidents, that make the beauty of a tragedy; 'tis the discourses, when

they are natural and passionate: so are Shakespeare's.

"The parts of a poem, tragick or heroick, are,

"1. The fable itself.

"2. The order or manner of its contrivance, in relation of the parts to

the whole.

"3. The manners, or decency, of the characters, in speaking or acting

what is proper for them, and proper to be shown by the poet.

"4. The thoughts which express the manners.

"5. The words which express those thoughts.

"In the last of these Homer excels Virgil; Virgil all other ancient

poets; and Shakespeare all modern poets.

"For the second of these, the order: the meaning is, that a fable ought

to have a beginning, middle, and an end, all just and natural; so that

that part, e.g. which is the middle, could not naturally be the beginning

or end, and so of the rest: all depend on one another, like the links of

a curious chain. If terrour and pity are only to be raised, certainly

this author follows Aristotle's rules, and Sophocles' and Euripides'

example: but joy may be raised too, and that doubly, either by seeing

a wicked man punished, or a good man at last fortunate; or, perhaps,

indignation, to see wickedness prosperous, and goodness depressed: both

these may be profitable to the end of tragedy, reformation of manners;

but the last improperly, only as it begets pity in the audience: though

Aristotle, I confess, places tragedies of this kind in the second form.

"He who undertakes to answer this excellent critique of Mr. Rymer, in

behalf of our English poets against the Greek, ought to do it in this

manner: either by yielding to him the greatest part of what he contends

for, which consists in this, that the 'mithos', i. e. the design

and conduct of it, is more conducing in the Greeks to those ends of

tragedy, which Aristotle and he propose, namely, to cause terrour and

pity; yet the granting this does not set the Greeks above the English

poets.

"But the answerer ought to prove two things: first, that the fable is not

the greatest masterpiece of a tragedy, though it be the foundation of it.

"Secondly, that other ends, as suitable to the nature of tragedy, may be

found in the English, which were not in the Greek.

"Aristotle places the fable first; not 'quoad dignitatem, sed quoad

fundamentum:' for a fable, never so movingly contrived to those ends of

his, pity and terrour, will operate nothing on our affections, except the

characters, manners, thoughts, and words, are suitable.

"So that it remains for Mr. Rymer to prove, that in all those, or the

greatest part of them, we are inferiour to Sophocles and Euripides: and

this he has offered at, in some measure; but, I think, a little partially

to the ancients.

"For the fable itself, 'tis in the English more adorned with episodes,

and larger than in the Greek poets; consequently more diverting. For, if

the action be but one, and that plain, without any counterturn of design

or episode, i.e. underplot, how can it be so pleasing as the English,

which have both underplot and a turned design, which keeps the audience

in expectation of the catastrophe? whereas in the Greek poets we see

through the whole design at first.

"For the characters, they are neither so many nor so various in Sophocles

and Euripides, as in Shakespeare and Fletcher; only they are more adapted

to those ends of tragedy which Aristotle commends to us, pity and

terrour.

"The manners flow from the characters, and, consequently, must partake of

their advantages and disadvantages.

"The thoughts and words, which are the fourth and fifth beauties of

tragedy, are certainly more noble and more poetical in the English than

in the Greek, which must be proved by comparing them somewhat more

equitably than Mr. Rymer has done.

"After all, we need not yield, that the English way is less conducing to

move pity and terrour, because they often show virtue oppressed and vice

punished; where they do not both, or either, they are not to be defended.

"And if we should grant that the Greeks performed this better, perhaps it

may admit of dispute, whether pity and terrour are either the prime, or,

at least, the only ends of tragedy.

"'Tis not enough that Aristotle has said so; for Aristotle drew his

models of tragedy from Sophocles and Euripides; and, if he had seen ours,

might have changed his mind. And chiefly we have to say (what I hinted on

pity and terrour, in the last paragraph save one,) that the punishment of

vice and reward of virtue are the most adequate ends of tragedy, because

most conducing to good example of life. Now, pity is not so easily raised

for a criminal (and the ancient tragedy always represents its chief

person such) as it is for an innocent man; and the suffering of innocence

and punishment of the offender is of the nature of English tragedy:

contrarily, in the Greek, innocence is unhappy often, and the offender

escapes. Then we are not touched with the sufferings of any sort of men

so much as of lovers; and this was almost unknown to the ancients; so

that they neither administered poetical justice, of which Mr. Rymer

boasts, so well as we; neither knew they the best commonplace of pity,

which is love.

"He, therefore, unjustly blames us for not building on what the ancients

left us; for it seems, upon consideration of the premises, that we have

wholly finished what they began.

"My judgment on this piece is this: that it is extremely learned, but

that the author of it is better read in the Greek than in the English

poets; that all writers ought to study this critique, as the best account

I have ever seen of the ancients; that the model of tragedy he has here

given is excellent, and extremely correct; but that it is not the only

model of all tragedy, because it is too much circumscribed in plot,

characters, &c.; and, lastly, that we may be taught here justly to admire

and imitate the ancients, without giving them the preference with this

author, in prejudice to our own country.

"Want of method in this excellent treatise makes the thoughts of the

author sometimes obscure.

"His meaning, that pity and terrour are to be moved, is, that they are

to be moved, as the means conducing to the ends of tragedy, which are

pleasure and instruction.

"And these two ends may be thus distinguished. The chief end of the poet

is to please; for his immediate reputation depends on it.

"The great end of the poem is to instruct, which is performed by making

pleasure the vehicle of that instruction; for poesy is an art, and all

arts are made to profit. _Rapin_.

"The pity, which the poet is to labour for, is for the criminal, not for

those or him whom he has murdered, or who have been the occasion of the

tragedy. The terrour is likewise in the punishment of the same criminal;

who, if he be represented too great an offender, will not be pitied: if

altogether innocent, his punishment will be unjust.

"Another obscurity is, where he says, Sophocles perfected tragedy by

introducing the third actor; that is, he meant, three kinds of action;

one company singing, or speaking; another playing on the musick; a third

dancing.

"To make a true judgment in this competition betwixt the Greek poets and

the English, in tragedy:

"Consider, first, how Aristotle has defined a tragedy. Secondly, what he

assigns the end of it to be. Thirdly, what he thinks the beauties of it.

Fourthly, the means to attain the end proposed.

"Compare the Greek and English tragick poets justly, and without

partiality, according to those rules.

"Then, secondly, consider whether Aristotle has made a just definition of

tragedy; of its parts, of its ends, and of its beauties; and whether he,

having not seen any others but those of Sophocles, Euripides, &c. had

or truly could determine what all the excellencies of tragedy are, and

wherein they consist.

"Next, show in what ancient tragedy was deficient: for example, in the

narrowness of its plots, and fewness of persons; and try whether that

be not a fault in the Greek poets; and whether their excellency was so

great, when the variety was visibly so little; or whether what they did

was not very easy to do.

"Then make a judgment on what the English have added to their beauties:

as, for example, not only more plot, but also new passions; as, namely,

that of love, scarcely touched on by the ancients, except in this one

example of Phaedra, cited by Mr. Rymer; and in that how short they were

of Fletcher!

"Prove also that love, being an heroick passion, is fit for tragedy,

which cannot be denied, because of the example alleged of Phaedra; and

how far Shakespeare has outdone them in friendship, &c.

"To return to the beginning of this inquiry; consider if pity and terrour

be enough for tragedy to move: and I believe, upon a true definition of

tragedy, it will be found that its work extends farther, and that it is

to reform manners, by a delightful representation of human life in great

persons, by way of dialogue. If this be true, then not only pity and

terrour are to be moved, as the only means to bring us to virtue, but

generally love to virtue, and hatred to vice; by showing the rewards of

one, and punishments of the other; at least, by rendering virtue always

amiable, though it be shown unfortunate; and vice detestable, though it

be shown triumphant.

"If, then, the encouragement of virtue and discouragement of vice be the

proper ends of poetry in tragedy, pity and terrour, though good means,

are not the only. For all the passions, in their turns, are to be set

in a ferment: as joy, anger, love, fear, are to be used as the poet's

commonplaces; and a general concernment for the principal actors is to be

raised, by making them appear such in their characters, their words, and

actions, as will interest the audience in their fortunes.

"And if, after all, in a larger sense, pity comprehends this concernment

for the good, and terrour includes detestation for the bad, then let us

consider whether the English have not answered this end of tragedy as

well as the ancients, or perhaps better.

"And here Mr. Rymer's objections against these plays are to be

impartially weighed, that we may see whether they are of weight enough to

turn the balance against our countrymen.

"'Tis evident those plays, which he arraigns, have moved both those

passions in a high degree upon the stage.

"To give the glory of this away from the poet, and to place it upon the

actors, seems unjust.

"One reason is, because whatever actors they have found, the event has

been the same; that is, the same passions have been always moved:

which shows, that there is something of force and merit in the plays

themselves, conducing to the design of raising these two passions: and

suppose them ever to have been excellently acted, yet action only adds

grace, vigour, and more life, upon the stage; but cannot give it wholly

where it is not first. But, secondly, I dare appeal to those who have

never seen them acted, if they have not found these two passions moved

within them: and if the general voice will carry it, Mr. Rymer's

prejudice will take off his single testimony.

"This, being matter of fact, is reasonably to be established by this

appeal; as, if one man says it is night, when the rest of the world

conclude it to be day, there needs no farther argument against him, that

it is so.

"If he urge, that the general taste is depraved, his arguments to prove

this can, at best, but evince that our poets took not the best way to

raise those passions; but experience proves against him, that those

means, which they have used, have been successful, and have produced

them.

"And one reason of that success is, in my opinion, this: that Shakespeare

and Fletcher have written to the genius of the age and nation in which

they lived; for though nature, as he objects, is the same in all places,

and reason too the same; yet the climate, the age, the disposition of the

people, to whom a poet writes, may be so different, that what pleased the

Greeks would not satisfy an English audience.

"And if they proceeded upon a foundation of truer reason to please the

Athenians, than Shakespeare and Fletcher to please the English, it only

shows that the Athenians were a more judicious people; but the poet's

business is certainly to please the audience.

"Whether our English audience have been pleased, hitherto, with acorns,

as he calls it, or with bread, is the next question; that is, whether the

means which Shakespeare and Fletcher have used, in their plays, to raise

those passions before named, be better applied to the ends by the Greek

poets than by them. And, perhaps, we shall not grant him this wholly: let

it be granted, that a writer is not to run down with the stream, or to

please the people by their usual methods, but rather to reform their

judgments, it still remains to prove that our theatre needs this total

reformation.

"The faults, which he has found in their designs, are rather wittily

aggravated in many places than reasonably urged; and as much may be

returned on the Greeks, by one who were as witty as himself.

"They destroy not, if they are granted, the foundation of the fabrick:

only take away from the beauty of the symmetry: for example, the faults

in the character of the king, in King and No King, are not, as he makes

them, such as render him detestable, but only imperfections which

accompany human nature, and are, for the most part, excused by the

violence of his love; so that they destroy not our pity or concernment

for him: this answer may be applied to most of his objections of that

kind.

"And Rollo committing many murders, when he is answerable but for one,

is too severely arraigned by him; for, it adds to our horrour and

detestation of the criminal; and poetick justice is not neglected

neither; for we stab him in our minds for every offence which he commits;

and the point, which the poet is to gain on the audience, is not so much

in the death of an offender as the raising an horrour of his crimes.

"That the criminal should neither be wholly guilty, nor wholly innocent,

but so participating of both as to move both pity and terrour, is

certainly a good rule, but not perpetually to be observed; for that were

to make all tragedies too much alike; which objection he foresaw, but has

not fully answered.

"To conclude, therefore; if the plays of the ancients are more correctly

plotted, ours are more beautifully written. And, if we can raise passions

as high on worse foundations, it shows our genius in tragedy is greater;

for in all other parts of it the English have manifestly excelled them."

The original of the following letter is preserved in the library at

Lambeth, and was kindly imparted to the publick by the reverend Dr. Vyse.

Copy of an original letter from John Dryden, esq. to

his sons in Italy, from a MS. in the Lambeth library,

marked N°. 933, p. 56.

(_Superscribed_)

"All' illustrissimo Sig're

Carlo Dryden, Camariere

d'Honore a S.S.

"In Roma.

"Franca per Mantoua.

"DEAR SONS,

"Sept. the 3d, our style.

"Being now at sir William Bowyer's in the country, I

cannot write at large, because I find myself somewhat indisposed

with a cold, and am thick of hearing, rather worse

than I was in town. I am glad to find, by your letter of

July 26th, your style, that you are both in health; but

wonder you should think me so negligent as to forget to

give you an account of the ship in which your parcel is to

come. I have written to you two or three letters concerning

it, which I have sent by safe hands, as I told you, and

doubt not but you have them before this can arrive to you.

Being out of town, I have forgotten the ship's name, which

your mother will inquire, and put it into her letter, which

is joined with mine. But the master's name I remember:

he is called Mr. Ralph Thorp; the ship is bound to Leghorn,

consigned to Mr. Peter and Mr. Thomas Ball, merchants.

I am of your opinion, that by Tonson's means

almost all our letters have miscarried for this last year.

But, however, he has missed of his design in the dedication,

though he had prepared the book for it; for in every

figure of Aeneas he has caused him to be drawn like king

William, with a hooked nose. After my return to town,

I intend to alter a play of sir Robert Howard's, written

long since, and lately put by him into my hands; 'tis called

the Conquest of China by the Tartars. It will cost me

six weeks' study, with the probable benefit of a hundred

pounds. In the mean time, I am writing a song for St.

Cecilia's Feast, who, you know, is the patroness of musick.

This is troublesome, and no way beneficial; but I could

not deny the stewards of the feast, who came in a body to

me to desire that kindness, one of them being Mr. Bridgman,

whose parents are your mother's friends. I hope to

send you thirty guineas between Michaelmas and Christmas,

of which I will give you an account when I come to

town. I remember the counsel you give me in your letter;

but dissembling, though lawful in some cases, is not my

talent; yet, for your sake, I will struggle with the plain

openness of my nature, and keep in my just resentments

against that degenerate order. In the mean time I flatter

not myself with any manner of hopes, but do my duty, and

suffer for God's sake; being assured, beforehand, never

to be rewarded, though the times should alter. Towards

the latter end of this month, September, Charles will begin

to recover his perfect health, according to his nativity,

which, casting it myself, I am sure is true, and all things

hitherto have happened accordingly to the very time that

I predicted them: I hope, at the same time, to recover

more health, according to my age. Remember me to poor

Harry, whose prayers I earnestly desire. My Virgil succeeds

in the world beyond its desert or my expectation.

You know the profits might have been more; but neither

my conscience nor my honour would suffer me to take

them: but I never can repent of my constancy, since I

am thoroughly persuaded of the justice of the cause for

which I suffer. It has pleased God to raise up many

friends to me amongst my enemies, though they who

ought to have been my friends are negligent of me. I am

called to dinner, and cannot go on with this letter, which

I desire you to excuse; and am

"Your most affectionate father,

"JOHN DRYDEN."

[Footnote 92: The life of Dryden is written with more than Johnson's

usual copiousness of biography, and with peculiar vigour and justness of

criticism. "None, perhaps, of the Lives of the Poets," says the Edinburgh

Review, for October, 1808, "is entitled to so high a rank. No prejudice

interfered with his judgment; he approved his politics; he could feel no

envy of such established fame; he had a mind precisely formed to relish

the excellencies of Dryden--more vigorous than refined; more reasoning

than impassioned." Edinburgh Review, xxv. p. 117. Many dates, however,

and little facts have been rectified by Mr. Malone, in his most minute

Account of the Life and Writings of John Dryden; and sir Walter Scott, in

the life prefixed to his edition of Dryden's works, has been still more

industrious in the collection of incidents and contemporary writings,

that can only interest the antiquary. Those to whom Johnson's life seems

not sufficiently ample, we refer to the above works. For an eulogy

on Dryden's powers, as a satirist, see the notes on the Pursuits of

Literature. ED.]

[Footnote 93: Mr. Malone has lately proved, that there is no satisfactory

evidence for this date. The inscription on Dryden's monument says only

"natus 1632." See Malone's Life of Dryden, prefixed to his Critical and

Miscellaneous Prose Works, p. 5. note. C.]

[Footnote 94: Of Cumberland. Ibid. p. 10. C.]

[Footnote 95: Mr. Malone has furnished us with a detailed account of

our poet's circumstances, from which it appears, that although he was

possessed of a sufficient income, in the early part of his life, he was

considerably embarrassed at its close. See Malone's Life, p. 440.]

[Footnote 96: Mr. Derrick's Life of Dryden was prefixed to a very

beautiful and correct edition of Dryden's Miscellanies, published by

the Tonsons, in 1760,4 vols. 8vo. Derrick's part, however, was poorly

executed, and the edition never became popular. C.]

[Footnote 97: He went off to Trinity college, and was admitted to a

bachelor's degree in Jan. 1653-4, and in 1657 was made M.A.]

[Footnote 98: This is a mistake; his poem on the death of lord Hastings

appeared in a volume entitled Tears of the Muses on the death of Henry

Lord Hastings. 8vo. 1649. M.]

[Footnote 99: The order of his plays has been accurately ascertained by

Mr. Malone. C.]

[Footnote 100: The duke of Guise was his first attempt in the drama, but

laid aside, and afterwards new modelled. See Malone, p. 51.]

[Footnote 101: See Malone, p. 91.]

[Footnote 102: He did not obtain the laurel till Aug. 18, 1670, but Mr.

Malone informs us, the patent had a retrospect, and the salary commenced

from the Midsummer after Davenant's death. C.]

[Footnote 103: Downes says it was performed on a very unlucky day, viz.

that on which the duke of Monmouth landed in the west; and he intimates,

that the consternation into which the kingdom was thrown by this event,

was a reason why it was performed but six times, and was in general ill

received. H.]

[Footnote 104: This is a mistake. It was set to musick by Purcell, and

well received, and is yet a favourite entertainment. H.]

[Footnote 105: Johnson has here quoted from memory. Warburton is the

original relater of this anecdote, who says he had it from Southern

himself. According to him, Dryden's usual price had been _four guineas_,

and he made Southern pay _six_. In the edition of Southern's plays, 1774,

we have a different deviation from the truth, _five_ and _ten_ guineas.

M.]

[Footnote 106: Dr. Johnson, in this assertion, was misled by Langbaine.

Only one of these plays appeared in 1678. Nor were there more than three

in any one year. The dates are now added from the original editions. R.]

[Footnote 107: It was published in 1672. R.]

[Footnote 108: This remark, as Mr. Malone observes, is founded upon

the erroneous dates with which Johnson was supplied by Langbaine. The

Rehearsal was played in 1671, but not published till the next year; The

Wild Gallant was printed in 1669, The Maiden Queen in 1668, Tyrannick

Love in 1670; the two parts of Granada were performed in 1669 and 1670,

though not printed till 1672. Additions were afterwards made to The

Rehearsal, and among these are the parodies on Assignation, which are not

to be found in Buckingham's play as it originally appeared. Mr. Malone

denies that there is any allusion to Marriage à-la-mode. See Malone, p.

100. J. B.]

[Footnote 109: It is mentioned by A. Wood, Athen, Oxon. vol. ii. p. 804.

2nd ed. C.]

[Footnote 110: Dryden translated two entire epistles, Canace to Macareus,

and Dido to Aeneas. Helen to Paris was translated by him and lord

Mulgrave. Malone, J.B.]

[Footnote 111: Azaria and Hushai was written by Samuel Pordage, a

dramatick writer of that time.]

[Footnote 112: Dr. John Reynolds, who lived temp. Jac. I. was at first a

zealous papist, and his brother William as earnest a protestant; but by

mutual disputation each converted the other. See Fuller's Church History,

p. 47. book x. II.]

[Footnote 113: This is a mistake. See Malone, p. 194, &c.]

[Footnote 114: All Dryden's biographers have misdated this poem, which

Mr. Malone's more accurate researches prove to have been published on the

4th of Oct. 1682.]

[Footnote 115: Albion and Albanius must, however, be excepted. R.]

[Footnote 116: This story has been traced to its source, and clearly

proved to be a fabrication, by Mr. Malone. See Malone's Life, 347.]

[Footnote 117: An earlier account of Dryden's funeral than that above

cited, though without the circumstances that preceded it, is given by

Edward Ward, who, in his London Spy, published in 1706, relates, that on

the occasion there was a performance of solemn musick at the college,

and that at the procession, which himself saw, standing at the end

of Chancery lane, Fleet street, there was a concert of hautboys and

trumpets. The day of Dryden's interment, he says, was Monday, the 13th of

May, which, according to Johnson, was twelve days after his decease,

and shows how long his funeral was in suspense. Ward knew not that

the expense of it was defrayed by subscription; but compliments lord

Jefferies for so pious an undertaking. He also says, that the cause of

Dryden's death was an inflammation in his toe, occasioned by the flesh

growing over the nail, which, being neglected, produced a mortification

in his leg. H.]

[Footnote 118: In the register of the College of Physicians, is the

following entry: "May 3, 1700. Comitiis Censoriis ordinariis. At the

request of several persons of quality, that Mr. Dryden might be carried

from the College of Physicians to be interred at Westminster, it was

unanimously granted by the president and censors."

This entry is not calculated to afford any credit to the narrative

concerning lord Jefferies. R.]

[Footnote 119: See what is said on this head with regard to Cowley and

Addison, in their respective lives.]

[Footnote 120: Preface to Ovid's Metamorphoses. Dr. J.]

[Footnote 121: We are not about to attempt a justification of Dryden's

strange use, in the above stanzas, of nautical phrases, but we must

remark, that Johnson's antipathy to ships, and every thing connected

with them, made him unusually sensitive of any thing like naval

technicalities. And yet surely the occasional and judicious use of them

in description is quite as allowable as the introduction of allusions to

the printing office or bookseller's shop, with which Johnson happened to

be familiar, and, therefore, did not disapprove. St. Paul did not disdain

to adopt naval phraseology in his exquisite narrative of his own perils

by sea. ED.]

[Footnoteb 122: A heart-sinking and painful depression has been

experienced by most of us on concluding a favourite author; but the

sensation has never been more vividly portrayed in language, than in the

above passage. ED.]

[Footnote 123: I cannot see why Johnson has thought there was any want of

clearness in this passage even in prose. Addison has given us almost the

very same thought in very good prose: "If we look forward to him [the

deity] for help, we shall never be in danger of falling down those

precipices which our imagination is apt to create. Like those who walk

upon a line, if we keep our eye fixed upon one point, we may step forward

securely; whereas an imprudent or cowardly glance on either side will

infallibly destroy us." Spectator, No. 615. J.B.]

[Footnote 124: This is an error. The alexandrine inserted among heroick

lines of ten syllables is found in many of the writers of queen

Elizabeth's reign. It will be sufficient to mention Hall, who has already

been quoted for the use of the triplet:

As tho' the staring world hang'd on his sleeve.

Whenever he smiles to laugh, and when he sighs to grieve.

Hall's Sat. book i. sat. 7.

Take another instance:

For shame! or better write or Labeo write none.

Hall's Sat. book ii. sat 1. J.B.]

SMITH

Edmund Smith is one of those lucky writers who have, without much labour,

attained high reputation, and who are mentioned with reverence, rather

for the possession, than the exertion of uncommon abilities.

Of his life little is known; and that little claims no praise but what

can be given to intellectual excellence, seldom employed to any virtuous

purpose. His character, as given by Mr. Oldisworth, with all the

partiality of friendship, which is said, by Dr. Burton, to show "what

fine things one man of parts can say of another," and which, however,

comprises great part of what can be known of Mr. Smith, it is better to

transcribe, at once, than to take by pieces. I shall subjoin such little

memorials as accident has enabled me to collect.

Mr. Edmund Smith was the only son of an eminent merchant, one Mr. Neale,

by a daughter of the famous baron Lechmere. Some misfortunes of his

father, which were soon followed by his death, were the occasion of the

son's being left very young in the hands of a near relation, (one who

married Mr. Neale's sister,) whose name was Smith.

This gentleman and his lady treated him as their own child, and put him

to Westminster school, under the care of Dr. Busby; whence, after the

loss of his faithful and generous guardian, (whose name he assumed and

retained,) he was removed to Christ church, in Oxford, and there, by his

aunt, handsomely maintained till her death; after which he continued a

member of that learned and ingenious society, till within five years of

his own; though, some time before his leaving Christ church, he was

sent for by his mother to Worcester, and owned and acknowledged as

her legitimate son; which had not been mentioned, but to wipe off the

aspersions that were ignorantly cast by some on his birth. It is to be

remembered, for our author's honour, that, when at Westminster election

he stood a candidate for one of the universities, he so signally

distinguished himself by his conspicuous performances, that there arose

no small contention, between the representative electors of Trinity

college, in Cambridge, and Christ church, in Oxon, which of those two

royal societies should adopt him as their own. But the electors of

Trinity college having the preference of choice that year, they

resolutely elected him; who yet, being invited, at the same time, to

Christ church, chose to accept of a studentship there. Mr. Smith's

perfections, as well natural as acquired, seem to have been formed upon

Horace's plan, who says, in his Art of Poetry:

Ego nec studium sine divite vena,

Nec rude quid prosit video ingenium; alterius sic

Altera poscit opem res, et conjurat amice.

He was endowed by nature with all those excellent and necessary

qualifications which are previous to the accomplishment of a great man.

His memory was large and tenacious, yet, by a _curious felicity, chiefly_

susceptible of the finest impressions it received from the best authors

he read, which it always preserved in their primitive strength and

amiable order.

He had a quickness of apprehension, and vivacity of understanding, which

easily took in and surmounted the most subtile and knotty parts of

mathematicks and metaphysicks. His wit was prompt and flowing, yet

solid and piercing; his taste delicate, his head clear, and his way of

expressing his thoughts perspicuous and engaging. I shall say nothing of

his person, which yet was so well _turned_, that no neglect of himself in

his dress could render it disagreeable; insomuch, that the fair sex, who

observed and esteemed him, at once commended and reproved him by the name

of the _handsome_ sloven. An eager but generous and noble emulation grew

up with him; which (as it were a rational sort of instinct) pushed him

upon striving to excel in every art and science that could make him a

credit to his college, and that college the ornament of the most

learned and polite university; and it was his happiness to have several

contemporaries and fellow-students who exercised and excited this virtue

in themselves and others, thereby becoming so deservedly in favour with

this age, and so good a proof of its nice discernment. His judgment,

naturally good, soon ripened into an exquisite fineness and

distinguishing sagacity, which as it was active and busy, so it

was vigorous and manly, keeping even paces with a rich and strong

imagination, always upon the wing, and never tired with aspiring. Hence

it was, that, though he writ as young as Cowley, he had no puerilities;

and his earliest productions were so far from having any thing in them

mean and trifling, that, like the junior compositions of Mr. Stepney,

they may make grey authors blush. There are many of his first essays in

oratory, in epigram, elegy, and epick, still handed about the university

in manuscript, which show a masterly hand; and, though maimed and injured

by frequent transcribing, make their way into our most celebrated

miscellanies, where they shine with uncommon lustre. Besides those verses

in the Oxford books, which he could not help setting his name to, several

of his compositions came abroad under other names, which his own singular

modesty, and faithful silence, strove in vain to conceal. The Encaenia

and publick collections of the university upon state subjects, were

never in such esteem, either for elegy or congratulation, as when he

contributed most largely to them; and it was natural for those who knew

his peculiar way of writing, to turn to his share in the work, as by

far the most relishing part of the entertainment. As his parts were

extraordinary, so he well knew how to improve them; and not only to

polish the diamond, but enchase it in the most solid and durable metal.

Though he was an academick the greatest part of his life, yet he

contracted no sourness of temper, no spice of pedantry, no itch of

disputation, or obstinate contention for the old or new philosophy, no

assuming way of dictating to others, which are faults (though excusable)

which some are insensibly led into, who are constrained to dwell long

within the walls of a private college. His conversation was pleasant and

instructive, and what Horace said of Plotius, Varius, and Virgil, might

justly be applied to him:

Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. Sat. v. l. 1.

As correct a writer as he was in his most elaborate pieces, he read the

works of others with candour, and reserved his greatest severity for his

own compositions; being readier to cherish and advance, than damp or

depress a rising genius, and as patient of being excelled himself (if any

could excel him) as industrious to excel others.

'Twere to be wished he had confined himself to a particular profession,

who was capable of surpassing in any; but, in this, his want of

application was, in a great measure, owing to his want of due

encouragement.

He passed through the exercises of the college and university with

unusual applause; and though he often suffered his friends to call him

off from his retirements, and to lengthen out those jovial avocations,

yet his return to his studies was so much the more passionate, and

his intention upon those refined pleasures of reading and thinking

so vehement, (to which his facetious and unbended intervals bore no

proportion,) that the habit grew upon him; and the series of meditation

and reflection being kept up whole weeks together, he could better sort

his ideas, and take in the sundry parts of a science at one view, without

interruption or confusion. Some, indeed, of his acquaintance, who were

pleased to distinguish between the wit and the scholar, extolled him

altogether on the account of the first of these titles; but others, who

knew him better, could not forbear doing him justice as a prodigy in both

kinds. He had signalized himself, in the schools, as a philosopher and

polemick of extensive knowledge and deep penetration; and went through

all the courses with a wise regard to the dignity and importance of each

science.

I remember him in the Divinity school responding and disputing with a

perspicuous energy, a ready exactness, and commanding force of argument,

when Dr. Jane worthily presided in the chair; whose condescending and

disinterested commendation of him gave him such a reputation, as

silenced the envious malice of his enemies, who durst not contradict

the approbation of so profound a master in theology. None of those

self-sufficient creatures, who have either trifled with philosophy, by

attempting to ridicule it, or have encumbered it with novel terms and

burdensome explanations, understood its real weight and purity half so

well as Mr. Smith. He was too discerning to allow of the character of

unprofitable, rugged, and abstruse, which some superficial sciolists, (so

very smooth and polite, as to admit of no impression,) either out of an

unthinking indolence, or an ill-grounded prejudice, had affixed to this

sort of studies. He knew the thorny terms of philosophy served well to

fence in the true doctrines of religion; and looked upon school-divinity

as upon a rough but well-wrought armour, which might at once adorn and

defend the christian hero, and equip him for the combat.

Mr. Smith had a long and perfect intimacy with all the Greek and Latin

classicks; with whom he had carefully compared whatever was worth

perusing in the French, Spanish, and Italian, (to which languages he was

no stranger,) and in all the celebrated writers of his own country.

But then, according to the curious observation of the late earl of

Shaftesbury, he kept the poet in awe by regular criticism; and, as it

were, married the two arts for their mutual support and improvement.

There was not a tract of credit, upon that subject, which he had not

diligently examined, from Aristotle down to Hedelin and Bossu; so that,

having each rule constantly before him, he could carry the art through

every poem, and at once point out the graces and deformities. By this

means he seemed to read with a design to correct, as well as imitate.

Being thus prepared, he could not but taste every little delicacy that

was set before him; though it was impossible for him, at the same time,

to be fed and nourished with any thing but what was substantial and

lasting. He considered the ancients and moderns not as parties or rivals

for fame, but as architects upon one and the same plan, the art of

poetry; according to which he judged, approved, and blamed, without

flattery or detraction. If he did not always commend the compositions of

others, it was not ill-nature, (which was not in his temper,) but strict

justice, that would not let him call a few flowers set in ranks, a glib

measure, and so many couplets, by the name of poetry: he was of Ben

Jonson's opinion, who could not admire

Verses as smooth and soft as cream,

In which there was neither depth nor stream.

And, therefore, though his want of complaisance for some men's

overbearing vanity made him enemies, yet the better part of mankind were

obliged by the freedom of his reflections.

His Bodleian Speech, though taken from a remote and imperfect copy, hath

shown the world how great a master he was of the Ciceronian eloquence,

mixed with the conciseness and force of Demosthenes, the elegant and

moving turns of Pliny, and the acute and wise reflections of Tacitus.

Since Temple and Roscommon, no man understood Horace better, especially

as to his happy diction, rolling numbers, beautiful imagery, and

alternate mixture of the soft and the sublime. This endeared Dr. Hannes's

odes to him, the finest genius for Latin lyrick since the Augustan age.

His friend Mr. Philips's ode to Mr. St. John, (late lord Bolingbroke,)

after the manner of Horace's Lusory or Amatorian Odes, is certainly a

masterpiece; but Mr. Smith's Pocockius is of the sublimer kind, though,

like Waller's writings upon Oliver Cromwell, it wants not the most

delicate and surprising turns peculiar to the person praised. I do not

remember to have seen any thing like it in Dr. Bathurst[125], who had

made some attempts this way with applause. He was an excellent judge of

humanity; and so good an historian, that in familiar discourse he would

talk over the most memorable facts in antiquity, the lives, actions, and

characters of celebrated men, with amazing facility and accuracy. As he

had thoroughly read and digested Thuanus's works, so he was able to copy

after him; and his talent in this kind was so well known and allowed,

that he had been singled out, by some great men, to write a history,

which it was for their interest to have done with the utmost art and

dexterity. I shall not mention for what reasons this design was dropped,

though they are very much to Mr. Smith's honour. The truth is, and I

speak it before living witnesses, whilst an agreeable company could

fix him upon a subject of useful literature, nobody shone to greater

advantage; he seemed to be that Memmius whom Lucretius speaks of:

Quem tu, dea, tempore in omni

Omnibus ornatum voluisti excellere rebus.

His works are not many, and those scattered up and down in miscellanies

and collections, being wrested from him by his friends with great

difficulty and reluctance. All of them together make but a small part of

that much greater body which lies dispersed in the possession of numerous

acquaintance; and cannot, perhaps, be made entire without great injustice

to him, because few of them had his last hand, and the transcriber was

often obliged to take the liberties of a friend. His condolence for the

death of Mr. Philips is full of the noblest beauties, and hath done

justice to the ashes of that second Milton, whose writings will last as

long as the English language, generosity, and valour. For him Mr. Smith

had contracted a perfect friendship; a passion he was most susceptible

of, and whose laws he looked upon as sacred and inviolable.

Every subject that passed under his pen had all the life, proportion,

and embellishments bestowed on it, which an exquisite skill, a warm

imagination, and a cool judgment, possibly could bestow on it. The epick,

lyrick, elegiack, every sort of poetry he touched upon, (and he had

touched upon a great variety,) was raised to its proper height, and the

differences between each of them observed with a judicious accuracy. We

saw the old rules and new beauties placed in admirable order by each

other; and there was a predominant fancy and spirit of his own infused,

superiour to what some draw off from the ancients, or from poesies here

and there culled out of the moderns, by a painful industry and servile

imitation. His contrivances were adroit and magnificent; his images

lively and adequate; his sentiments charming and majestick; his

expressions natural and bold; his numbers various and sounding; and

that enamelled mixture of classical wit, which, without redundance and

affectation, sparkled through his writings, and was no less pertinent and

agreeable.

His Phaedra is a consummate tragedy, and the success of it was as great

as the most sanguine expectations of his friends could promise or

foresee. The number of nights, and the common method of filling the

house, are not always the surest marks of judging what encouragement a

play meets with; but the generosity of all the persons of a refined taste

about town was remarkable on this occasion; and it must not be forgotten

how zealously Mr. Addison espoused his interest, with all the elegant

judgment and diffusive good-nature for which that accomplished gentleman

and author is so justly valued by mankind. But as to Phaedra, she has

certainly made a finer figure under Mr. Smith's conduct, upon the English

stage, than either in Rome or Athens; and if she excels the Greek and

Latin Phaedra, I need not say she surpasses the French one, though

embellished with whatever regular beauties and moving softness Racine

himself could give her.

No man had a juster notion of the difficulty of composing than Mr. Smith;

and he sometimes would create greater difficulties than he had reason

to apprehend. Writing with ease, what (as Mr. Wycherley speaks) may

be easily written, moved his indignation. When he was writing upon a

subject, he would seriously consider what Demosthenes, Homer, Virgil,

or Horace, if alive, would say upon that occasion, which whetted him to

exceed himself, as well as others. Nevertheless, he could not, or would

not, finish several subjects he undertook; which may be imputed either

to the briskness of his fancy, still hunting after new matter, or to an

occasional indolence, which spleen and lassitude brought upon him, which,

of all his foibles, the world was least inclined to forgive. That this

was not owing to conceit and vanity, or a fulness of himself, (a frailty

which has been imputed to no less men than Shakespeare and Jonson,) is

clear from hence; because he left his works to the entire disposal of

his friends, whose most rigorous censures he even courted and solicited,

submitting to their animadversions, and the freedom they took with them,

with an unreserved and prudent resignation.

I have seen sketches and rough draughts of some poems he designed, set

out analytically; wherein the fable, structure, and connexion, the

images, incidents, moral episodes, and a great variety of ornaments, were

so finely laid out, so well fitted to the rules of art, and squared so

exactly to the precedents of the ancients, that I have often looked on

these poetical elements with the same concern with which curious men are

affected at the sight of the most entertaining remains and ruins of an

antique figure or building. Those fragments of the learned, which

some men have been so proud of their pains in collecting, are useless

rarities, without form and without life, when compared with these

embryos, which wanted not spirit enough to preserve them; so that I

cannot help thinking, that, if some of them were to come abroad, they

would be as highly valued by the poets, as the sketches of Julio and

Titian are by the painters; though there is nothing in them but a few

outlines, as to the design and proportion.