His he would have left a reputation, at best, | description, or a talent for narration, little higher than that of Lee or Dave- may, for a time, pass for dramatic nant. He would have been known genius. Dryden was an incomparable only to men of letters; and by them reasoner in verse. He was conscious he would have been mentioned as a of his power; he was proud of it; and writer who threw away, on subjects the authors of the Rehearsal justly which he was incompetent to treat, charged him with abusing it. powers which, judiciously employed, warriors and princesses are fond of might have raised him to eminence; discussing points of amorous casuistry, whose diction and whose numbers had such as would have delighted a Parliasometimes very high merit; but all ment of Love. They frequently go whose works were blemished by a false still deeper, and speculate on philosotaste, and by errors of gross negligence. phical necessity and the origin of evil. A few of his prologues and epilogues There were, however, some occasions might perhaps still have been remem- which absolutely required this peculiar bered and quoted. In these little talent. Then Dryden was indeed at pieces he early showed all the powers home. All his best scenes are of this which afterwards rendered him the description. They are all between men ; greatest of modern satirists. But, dur- for the heroes of Dryden, like many ing the latter part of his life, he other gentlemen, can never talk sense gradually abandoned the drama. His when ladies are in company. They plays appeared at longer intervals. are all intended to exhibit the empire He renounced rhyme in tragedy. His of reason over violent passion. We language became less turgid—his cha- have two interlocutors, the one eager racters less exaggerated. He did not and impassioned, the other high, cool, indeed produce correct representations and judicious. The composed and raof human nature; but he ceased to tional character gradually acquires the daub such monstrous chimeras as ascendency. His fierce companion is those which abound in his earlier first inflamed to rage by his reproaches, pieces. Here and there passages oc- then overawed by his equanimity, concur worthy of the best ages of the vinced by his arguments, and soothed British stage. The style which the by his persuasions. This is the case in drama requires changes with every the scene between Hector and Troilus, change of character and situation. He in that between Antony and Ventidius, who can vary his manner to suit the and in that between Sebastian and variation is the great dramatist; but Dorax. Nothing of the same kind in he who excels in one manner only will, Shakspeare is equal to them, except the when that manner happens to be ap-quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, propriate, appear to be a great dra- which is worth them all three. matist; as the hands of a watch which does not go point right once in the twelve hours. Sometimes there is a scene of solemn debate. This a mere rhetorician may write as well as the greatest tragedian that ever lived. We confess that to us the speech of Sempronius in Cato seems very nearly as good as Shakspeare could have made it. But when the senate breaks up, and we find that the lovers and their mistresses, the hero, the villain, and the deputy-villain, all continue to harangue in the same style, we perceive the difference between a man who can write a play and a man who can write a speech. In the same manner, wit, a talent for Some years before his death, Dryden altogether ceased to write for the stage. He had turned his powers in a new direction, with success the most splendid and decisive. His taste had gradually awakened his creative faculties. The first rank in poetry was beyond his reach; but he challenged and secured the most honourable place in the second. His imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich; it enabled him to run, though not to soar. When he attempted the highest flights, he became ridiculous; but, while he remained in a lower region, he outstripped all competitors. All his natural and all his acquired points of criticism, he always reasons ingeniously; and when he is disposed to be honest, correctly. But the theological and political questions which he undertook to treat in verse were precisely those which he understood least. His arguments, therefore, are often worthless. But the manner in which they are stated is beyond all praise. The style is transparent. The topics follow each other in the happiest order. The objections are drawn up in such a manner that the whole fire of the reply may be brought to bear on them. The circumlocutions which are substituted for technical phrases are clear, neat, and exact. The illustrations at once adorn and elucidate the reasoning. The sparkling epigrams of Cowley, and the simple garrulity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are alternately employed, in the happiest manner, to give effect to what is obvious, or clearness to what is obscure. powers fitted him to found a good eritical school of poetry. Indeed he carried his reforms too far for his age. After his death our literature retrograded; and a century was necessary to bring it back to the point at which he left it. The general soundness and healthfulness of his mental constitution, his information of vast superficies, though of small volume, his wit scarcely inferior to that of the most distinguished followers of Donne, his eloquence, grave, deliberate, and commanding, could not save him from disgraceful failure as a rival of Shakspeare, but raised him far above the level of Boileau. His command of language was immense. With him died the secret of the old poetical diction of England, -the art of producing rich effects by familiar words. In the following century it was as completely lost as the Gothic method of painting glass, and was but poorly supplied by the laborious and tesselated imitations of Mason His literary creed was catholic, even and Gray. On the other hand, he was to latitudinarianism; not from any the first writer under whose skilful want of acuteness, but from a disposimanagement the scientific vocabulary tion to be easily satisfied. He was fell into natural and pleasing verse. quick to discern the smallest glimpse In this department, he succeeded as of merit; he was indulgent even to completely as his contemporary Gib-gross improprieties, when accompanied bons succeeded in the similar enterprise by any redeeming talent. When he of carving the most delicate flowers from heart of oak. The toughest and most knotty parts of language became ductile at his touch. His versification in the same manner, while it gave the first model of that neatness and precision which the following generation esteemed so highly, exhibited, at the same time, the last examples of nobleness, freedom, variety of pause, and cadence. His tragedies in rhyme, how-skies the school-boy lines of Addison. ever worthless in themselves, had at least served the purpose of nonsenseverses; they had taught him all the arts of melody which the heroic couplet admits. For bombast, his prevailing vice, his new subjects gave little opportunity; his better taste gradually discarded it. He possessed, as we have said, in a pre-eminent degree the power of reasoning in verse; and this power was now peculiarly useful to him. His logic is by no means uniformly sound. On said a severe thing, it was to serve a temporary purpose,-to support an argument, or to tease a rival. Never was so able a critic so free from fastidiousness. He loved the old_poets, especially Shakspeare. He admired the ingenuity which Donne and Cowley had so wildly abused. He did justice, amidst the general silence, to the memory of Milton. He praised to the Always looking on the fair side of every object, he admired extravagance on account of the invention which he supposed it to indicate; he excused affectation in favour of wit; he tolerated even tameness for the sake of the correctness which was its concomitant. It was probably to this turn of mind, rather than to the more disgraceful causes which Johnson has assigned, that we are to attribute the exaggeration which disfigures the panegyrics of Dryden. No writer, it must be owned, has carried the flattery of dedication | deceive the reader by sophistry which to a greater length. But this was not, could scarcely have deceived himself. we suspect, merely interested servility: His dicta are the dicta, not of a judge, it was the overflowing of a mind singu- but of an advocate:-often of an adlarly disposed to admiration,-of a vocate in an unsound cause. Yet, in mind which diminished vices, and the very act of misrepresenting the magnified virtues and obligations. The laws of composition, he shows how well most adulatory of his addresses is that he understands them. But he was perin which he dedicates the State of In-petually acting against his better knownocence to Mary of Modena. Johnson ledge. His sins were sins against light. thinks it strange that any man should He trusted that what was bad would be use such language without self-detesta- pardoned for the sake of what was good. tion. But he has not remarked that What was good, he took no pains to make to the very same work is prefixed an better. He was not, like most persons eulogium on Milton, which certainly who rise to eminence, dissatisfied even could not have been acceptable at the with his best productions. He had set court of Charles the Second. Many up no unattainable standard of perfecyears later, when Whig principles were tion, the contemplation of which might in a great measure triumphant, Sprat at once improve and mortify him. His refused to admit a monument of John path was not attended by an unapPhillips into Westminster Abbey-be-proachable mirage of excellence, for cause, in the epitaph, the name of ever receding, and for ever pursued. Milton incidently occurred. The walls of his church, he declared, should not be polluted by the name of a republican! Dryden was attached, both by principle and interest, to the Court. But nothing could deaden his sensibility to excellence. We are unwilling to accuse him severely, because the same disposition, which prompted him to pay so generous a tribute to the memory of a poet whom his patrons detested, hurried him into extravagance when he described a princess distinguished by the splendour of her beauty and the graciousness of her manners. He was not disgusted by the negligence of others; and he extended the same toleration to himself. His mind was of a slovenly character,-fond of splendour, but indifferent to neatness. Hence most of his writings exhibit the sluttish magnificence of a Russian noble, all vermin and diamonds, dirty linen and inestimable sables. Those faults which spring from affectation, time and thought in a great measure removed from his poems. But his carelessness he retained to the last. If towards the close of his life he less frequently went wrong from negligence, it was only beThis is an amiable temper; but it is cause long habits of composition rennot the temper of great men. Where dered it more easy to go right. In his there is elevation of character, there best pieces we find false rhymes,— will be fastidiousness. It is only in triplets, in which the third line appears novels and on tombstones that we to be a mere intruder, and, while it meet with people who are indulgent to breaks the music, adds nothing to the the faults of others, and unmerciful to meaning,-gigantic Alexandrines of their own; and Dryden, at all events, fourteen and sixteen syllables, and was not one of these paragons. His truncated verses for which he never charity was extended most liberally troubled himself to find a termination to others; but it certainly began or a partner. at home. In taste he was by no Such are the beauties and the faults means deficient. His critical works which may be found in profusion are, beyond all comparison, superior to throughout the later works of Dryany which had, till then, appeared in den. A more just and complete esEngland. They were generally intended timate of his natural and acquired as apologies for his own poems, rather powers,-of the merits of his style and than as expositions of general princi-of its blemishes,-may be formed from ples; he, therefore, often attempts to the Hind and Panther, than from any of his other writings. As a didactic success. The glitter of Pope is cold. poem, it is far superior to the Religio The ardour of Persius is without Laici. The satirical parts, particularly brilliancy. Magnificent versification the character of Burnet, are scarcely and ingenious combinations rarely harinferior to the best passages in Absa- monise with the expression of deep lom and Achitophel. There are, more- feeling. In Juvenal and Dryden alone over, occasional touches of a tenderness we have the sparkle and the heat togewhich affects us more, because it is de- ther. Those great satirists succeeded in cent, rational, and manly, and reminds communicating the fervour of their feelus of the best scenes in his tragedies.ings to materials the most incombustiHis versification sinks and swells in happy unison with the subject; and his wealth of language seems to be unlimited. Yet, the carelessness with which he has constructed his plot, and the innumerable inconsistencies into which he is every moment falling, detract much from the pleasure which such various excellence affords. ble, and kindled the whole mass into a blaze, at once dazzling and destructive. We cannot, indeed, think, without regret, of the part which so eminent a writer as Dryden took in the disputes of that period. There was, no doubt, madness and wickedness on both sides. But there was liberty on the one, and despotism on the other. On this point, however, we will not dwell. At Talavera the English and French troops for a moment suspended their conflict, to drink of a stream which flowed between them. The shells were passed across from enemy to enemy without apprehension or molestation. We, in the same manner, would rather assist our In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new and rich vein, which he worked with signal success. The ancient satirists were the subjects of a despotic government. They were compelled to abstain from political topics, and to confine their attention to the frailties of private life. They might, indeed, sometimes venture to take liber-political adversaries to drink with us of ties with public men, that fountain of intellectual pleasure, which should be the common refreshment of both parties, than disturb and pollute it with the havock of unseason Macflecnoe is inferior to Absalom and Achitophel, only in the subject. In the execution it is even superior. But the greatest work of Dryden was the last, the Ode on Saint Cecilia's day. It is the masterpiece of the second class of poetry, and ranks but just below the great models of the first. It reminds us of the Pedasus of Achilles Thus Juvenal immortalised the obse-able hostilities. The advantages which Dryden derived from the nature of his subject he improved to the very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. The style of Horace and Boileau is fit only for light subjects. The Frenchman did indeed attempt to turn the theological reasonings of the Provincial Letters into verse, but with very indifferent ὃς, καὶ θνητὸς ἐὼν, ἕπεθ ̓ ἵπποις ἀθανάτοισι. By comparing it with the impotent ravings of the heroic tragedies, we may measure the progress which the mind of Dryden had made. He had learned to avoid a too audacious competition with higher natures, to keep at a distance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, to venture on no expression which did not convey a distinct idea to his own mind. There is none of that "darkness visible" of style which he had formerly affected, and in which the greatest poets only can succeed. Every-Cherubim, blazing with adamant and thing is definite, significant, and pic- gold. The council, the tournament, turesque. His early writings resembled the procession, the crowded cathedral, the gigantic works of those Chinese the camp, the guard-room, the chase, gardeners who attempt to rival nature were the proper scenes for Dryden. herself. to form cataracts of terrific But we have not space to pass in height and sound, to raise precipitous review all the works which Dryden ridges of mountains, and to imitate in wrote. We, therefore, will not specuartificial plantations the vastness and late longer on those which he might the gloom of some primeval forest. possibly have written. He may, on This manner he abandoned; nor did he the whole, be pronounced to have been ever adopt the Dutch taste which Pope a man possessed of splendid talents, affected, the trim parterres, and the which he often abused, and of a sound rectangular walks. He rather re-judgment, the admonitions of which he sembled our Kents and Browns, who, imitating the great features of landscape without emulating them, consulting the genius of the place, assisting nature and carefully disguising their art, produced, not a Chamouni or a Niagara, but a Stowe or a Hagley. often neglected; a man who succeeded only in an inferior department of his art, but who, in that department, succeeded pre-eminently; and who, with a more independent spirit, a more anxious desire of excellence, and more respect for himself, would, in his own walk, have attained to absolute perfection. HISTORY (MAY 1828). HENRY NEELE. London, 1828. We are, on the whole, inclined to regret that Dryden did not accomplish his purpose of writing an epic poem. It certainly would not have been a work of the highest rank. It would not have rivalled the Iliad, the Odys- The Romance of History. England. By sey, or the Paradise Lost; but it would have been superior to the productions To write history respectably-that is, of Apollonius, Lucan, or Statius, and to abbreviate despatches, and make not inferior to the Jerusalem Delivered. extracts from speeches, to intersperse It would probably have been a vigor- in due proportion epithets of praise ous narrative, animated with something and abhorrence, to draw up antithetiof the spirit of the old romances, en- cal characters of great men, setting riched with much splendid description, forth how many contradictory virtues and interspersed with fine declamations and vices they united, and abounding and disquisitions. The danger of in withs and withouts-all this is very Dryden would have been from aiming easy. But to be a really great histoo high; from dwelling too much, for torian is perhaps the rarest of intelexample, on his angels of kingdoms, and lectual distinctions. Many scientific attempting a competition with that werks are, in their kind, absolutely great writer who in his own time perfect. There are poems which we had so incomparably succeeded in re- should be inclined to designate as presenting to us the sights and sounds faultless, or as disfigured only by of another world. To Milton, and to blemishes which pass unnoticed in the Milton alone, belonged the secrets of general blaze of excellence. There are the great deep, the beach of sulphur, speeches, some speeches of Demosthe ocean of fire, the palaces of the thenes particularly, in which it would fallen dominations, glimmering through be impossible to alter a word without the everlasting shade, the silent wilder-altering it for the worse. But we are ness of verdure and fragrance where acquainted with no history which aparmed angels kept watch over the sleep proaches to our notion of what a hisof the first lovers, the portico of dia-tory ought to be with no history mond, the sea of jasper, the sapphire which does not widely depart, either pavement empurpled with celestial on the right hand or on the left, from roses, and the infinite ranks of the the exact line. |