write a speech. In the same manner, wit, a fell into natural and pleasing verse. In this talent for description, or a talent for narration, department, he succeeded as completely as his may, for a time, pass for dramatic genius. Dryden was an incomparable reasoner in verse. He was conscious of his power; he was proud of it; and the authors of the Rehearsal justly charged him with abusing it. His warriors and princesses are fond of discussing points of amorous casuistry, such as would have delighted a Parliament of Love. They frequently go still deeper, and speculate on philosophical necessity and the origin of evil.

There were, however, some occasions which absolutely required this peculiar talent. Then Dryden was indeed at home. All his best scenes are of this description. They are all between men; for the heroes of Dryden, like many other gentlemen, can never talk sense when ladies are in company. They are all intended to exhibit the empire of reason over violent passion. We have two interlocutors, the one eager and impassioned, the other high, cool, and judicious. The composed and rational character gradually acquires the ascendency. His fierce companion is first inflamed to rage by his reproaches, then overawed by his equanimity, convinced by his arguments, and soothed by his persuasions. This is the case in the scene between Hector and Troilus, in that between Antony and Ventidius, and in that between Sebastian and Dorax. Nothing of the same kind in Shakspeare is equal to them, except the quarrel between Brutus and Cassius, which is worth them all three.

contemporary Gibbons succeeded in the similar enterprise 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, however worthless in themselves, had at least served the purpose of nonsenseverses: they had taught him all the arts of me. lody 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 preeminent 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 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, Some years before his death, Dryden alto- that the whole fire of the reply may be brought gether ceased to write for the stage. He had to bear on them. The circumlocutions which turned his powers in a new direction, with are substituted for technical phrases, are clear, success the most splendid and decisive. His neat, and exact. The illustrations at once taste had gradually awakened his creative fa- adorn and elucidate the reasoning. The sparkculties. The first rank in poetry was beyond ling epigrams of Cowley, and the simple garruhis reach, but he challenged and secured the|lity of the burlesque poets of Italy, are altermost honourable place in the second. His nately employed, in the happiest manner, to imagination resembled the wings of an ostrich. give effect to what is obvious; or clearness to It enabled him to run, though not to soar. what is obscure. 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 powers fitted him to found a good critical 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 tesseated imitations of Mason and Gray. On the other hand, he was the first writer under whose skilful management the scientific vocabulary

His literary creed was catholic, even to latitudinarianism; not from any want of acuteness, but from a disposition to be easily satisfied. He was quick to discern the smallest glimpse of merit; he was indulgent even to gross improprieties, when accompanied by any redeeming talent. When he said a severe thing, it was to serve a temporary purpose,to support an argument, or to tease a riva). Never was so able a critic so free from fastidi ousness. 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 skies the schoolboy lines of Addison. Always look ing 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 pane gyrics of Dryden. No writer, it must br

owned, has carried the fiattery of dedication to a greater length. But this was not, we suspect, merely interested servility; it was the overflowing of a mind singularly disposed to admiration,-of a mind which diminished vices, and magnified virtues and obligations. The most adulatory of his addresses is that in which he dedicates the State of Innocence to Mary of Modena. Johnson thinks it strange that any man should use such language withcut self-detestation. But he has not remarked that to the very same work is prefixed an eulogium on Milton, which certainly could not have been acceptable at the court of Charles the Second. Many years later, when Whig principles were in a great measure triumphant, Sprat refused to admit a monument of John Philips into Westminster Abbey, because, in the epitaph, the name of Milton incidentally 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 gracious

ness of her manners.

his writings exhibit the sluggish magni.conce of a Russian noble, all vermin and diamonds, dirty linen and inestimable sables. Those faults which spring from affectation, t me 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 h less frequently went wrong from negligence, it was only because long habits of composition rendered it more easy to go right. In his best pieces, we find false rhymes-triplets, in which the third line appears to be a mere intruder, and, while it breaks the music, adds nothing to the meaning-gigantic Alexandrines of four teen and sixteen syllables, and truncated verses for which he never troubled himself to find a termination or a partner.

Such are the beauties and the faults which may be found in profusion throughout the later works of Dryden. A more just and complete estimate of his natural and acquired powers, of the merits of his style and of its blemishes, may be formed from the Hind and Panther, than from any of his other writings. As a didactic poem, it is far superior to the Religio Laici. The satirical parts, particularly the character of Burnet, are scarcely inferior to the best passages in Absalom and Achitophel. There are, moreover, occasional touches of a tenderness which affects us more, because it is decent, rational, and manly, and reminds us of the best scenes in his tragedies. His versi This is an amiable temper; but it is not the fication sinks and swells in happy unison with temper of great men. Where there is eleva- the subject; and his wealth of language seems tion of character, there will be fastidiousness. to be unlimited. Yet the carelessness with It is only in novels, and on tombstones, that which he has constructed his plot, and the inwe meet with people who are indulgent to the numerable inconsistencies into which he is faults of others, and unmerciful to their own; every moment falling, detract much from the and Dryden, at all events, was not one of pleasure which such varied excellence affords. these paragons. His charity was extended In Absalom and Achitophel he hit upon a new most liberally to others, but it certainly began and rich vein, which he worked with signal at home. In taste he was by no means defi-success. The ancient satirists were the sub. cient. His critical works are, beyond all com- jects of a despotic government. They were parison, superior to any which had, till then, compelled to abstain from political topics, and appeared in England. They were generally to confine their attention to the frailties of priintended as apologies for his own poems, ra-vate life. They might, indeed, sometimes ven. ther than as expositions of general principles; ture to take liberties with public men, he, therefore, often attempts to deceive th "Quorum Flaminia tegitur cinis atque Latina." reader by sophistry, which could scarcely have deceived himself. His dicta are the dicta, not Thus Juvenal immortalized the obsequious of a judge, but of an advocate; often of an senators, who met to decide the fate of the advocate in an unsound cause. Yet, in the memorable turbot. His fourth satire frequently very act of misrepresenting the laws of com- reminds us of the great political poem of Dryposition, he shows how well he understands den; but it was not written till Domitian had them. But he was perpetually acting against fallen, and it wants something of the peculiar his better knowledge. His sins were sins against flavour which belongs to contemporary invec light. He trusted, that what was bad would tive alone. His anger has stood so long, that, Je pardoned for the sake of what was good. though the body is not impaired, the effervesWhat was good, he took no pains to make bet-cence, the first cream, is gone. Boileau lay .C" He was not, like most persons who rise a eminence, dissatisfied even with his best productions. He had set up no unattainable standard of perfection, the contemplation of The advantages which Dryden derived from which might at once improve and mortify him. the nature of his subject he improved to the ilis path was not attended by an unapproach- very utmost. His manner is almost perfect. able mirage of excellence, forever receding The style of Horace and Boileau is fit only for and forever pursued. He was not disgusted light subjects. The Frenchman did indeed by the negligence of others, and he extended attempt to turn the theological reasonings of the same toleration to himself. His mind was the Provincial Letters into verse, but with of a slovenly character-fond of splendour, very indifferent success. The glitter of Pope but indifferent to neatness. Hence most of is cold. The ardour of Persius is without

under similar restraints; and, if he had been free from all restraint, would have been no match for our countryman.

He

brilliancy. Magnificent versification and in- | parterres and the rectangular waiks.
genious combinations rarely harmonize with
the expression of deep feeling. In Juvenal and
Dryden alone we have the sparkle and the heat
together. Those great satirists succeeded in
communicating the fervour of their feelings
to materials the most incombustible, and kin-
dled the whole mass into a blaze at once
dazzling and destructive. We cannot, indeed,
hink, without regret, of the part which so emi-
nent 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 ene-
my without apprehension or molestation. We,
in the same manner, would rather assist our
political adversaries to drink with us of that
fountain of intellectual pleasure which should
be the common refreshment of both parties,
than disturb and pollute it with the havoc of
unseasonable hostilities.

rather resembled our Kents and Browns,
who, imitating the great features of land-
scape without emulating them, consulting the
genius of the place, assisting nature and care.
fully disguising their art, produced, not a
Chamouni nor a Niagara, but a Stowe or a
Hagley.

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,

We are, on the whole, inclined to regret tha 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 Odyssey, or the Paradise Lost; but it would have been superior to the productions of Apollonius, Lucan, or Statius, and not inferior to the Jerusalem Delivered. It would probably have been a vigorous narrative, animated with something of the spirit of the old romances, enriched with much splendid description, and interspersed with fine declamations and disquisitions. The danger of Dryden would have been from aim ing too high; from dwelling too much, for ex ample, on his angels of kingdoms, and attempt ing a competition with that great writer, who in his own time had so incomparably succeeded in representing to us the sights and sounds of another world. To Milton, and to Milton alone, belonged the secrets of the great deep, the beach of sulphur, the ocean of fire; the palaces of the fallen dominations, glimmer. ing through the everlasting shade, the silent wilderness of verdure and fragrance where armed angels kept watch over the sleep of the first lovers, the portico of diamond, the sea of ος, και θνητος εων, επεθ' ιπποις αθανάτοισι. jasper, the sapphire pavement empurpled with By comparing it with the impotent ravings celestial roses, and the infinite ranks of the of the heroic tragedies, we may measure the Cherubim, blazing with adamant and gold. progress which the mind of Dryden had made. The council, the tournament, the procession, He had learned to avoid a too audacious com- the crowded cathedral, the camp, the guardpetition with higher natures, to keep at a dis-room, the chase, were the proper scenes for tance from the verge of bombast or nonsense, to venture on no expression which did not But we have not space to pass in review all convey a distinct idea to his own mind. the works which Dryden wrote. We, there There is none of that "darkness visible" of fore, will not speculate longer on those which style which he had formerly affected, and in he might possibly have written. He may, on which the greatest poets only can succeed. the whole, be pronounced to have been a man Every thing is definite, significant, and pic-possessed of splendid talents, which he often turesque. His early writings resembled the abused, and of a sound judgment, the adinonigigantic works of those Chinese gardeners tions of which he often neglected; a man who who attempt to rival nature herself, to form succeeded only in an inferior department of cataracts of terrific height and sound, to raise his art, but who, in that department, succeeded precipitous ridges of mountains, and to imi- pre-eminently; and who, with a more inde. tate in artificial plantations the vastness and pendent spirit, a more anxious desire of cxcci the gloom of some primeval forest. This man-lence, and more respect for himself, vould, in ner he abandoned, nor did he ever adopt the his own walk, have attained to rovite par Dutch taste which Pepe affected, the trim fection

Dryden.

HISTORY.*

[EDINBURGH REVIEW, 1828.]

To write history respectably-that is, to ab- | talent for description and dialogue, and the breviate despatches, and make extracts from pure sweet flow of his language, place him at speeches, to intersperse in due proportion the head of narrators. He reminds us of a epithets of praise and abhorrence, to draw up delightful child. There is a grace beyond the antithetica. characters of great men, setting reach of affectation in his awkwardness, a forth how many contradictory virtues and malice in his innocence, an intelligence in his vices they united, and abounding in withs and nonsense, an insinuating eloquence in his lisp. withouts; all this is very easy. But to be a We know of no writer who makes such inreally great historian is perhaps the rarest of terest for himself and his book in the heart of intellectual distinctions. Many Scientific works the reader. At the distance of three-and-twenty are, in their kind, absolutely perfect. There centuries, we feel for him the same sort of are Poems which we should be inclined to pitying fondness which Fontaine and Gay are designate as faultless, or as disfigured only by said to have inspired in society. He has blemishes which pass unnoticed in the general written an incomparable book. He has writblaze of excellence. There are Speeches, ten something better perhaps than the best some speeches of Demosthenes particularly, history; but he has not written a good history; in which it would be impossible to alter a he is, from the first to the last chapter, an inword, without altering it for the worse. But ventor. We do not here refer merely to those we are acquainted with no History which ap-gross fictions with which he has been reproachproaches to our notion of what a history ought to be; with no history which does not widely depart, either on the right hand or on the left, from the exact line.

ed by the critics of later times. We speak of that colouring which is equally diffused over his whole narrative, and which perpetually leaves the most sagacious reader in doubt The cause may easily be assigned. This what to reject and what to receive. The most province of literature is a debatable land. It authentic parts of his work bear the same re lies on the confines of two distinct territories. lation to his wildest legends, which Henry the It is under the jurisdiction of two hostile Fifth bears to the Tempest. There was an powers; and, like other districts similarly expedition undertaken by Xerxes against situated, it is ill defined, ill cultivated, and ill Greece; and there was an invasion of France. regulated. Instead of being equally shared There was a battle at Platea; and there was between its two rulers, the Reason and the a battle at Agincourt. Cambridge and Exeter, Imagination, it falls alternately under the sole | the Constable and the Dauphin, were persons and absolute dominion of each. It is some- as real as Demaratus and Pausanias. times fiction. It is sometimes theory.

History, it has been said, is philosophy teaching by examples. Unhappily what the philosophy gains in soundness and depth, the examples generally lose in vividness. A perfect historian must possess an imagination sufficiently powerful to make his narrative affecting and picturesque. Yet he must control it so absolutely as to content himself with the materials which he finds, and to refrain from supplying deficiencies by additions of his own. He must be a profound and ingenious reasoner. Yet he must possess sufficient selfcommand to abstain from casting his facts in the mould of his hypothesis. Those who can justly estimate these almost insuperable difficulties will not think it strange that every writer should have failed, either in the narraave or in the speculative department of hisirry.

It may be laid down as a general rule, though subject to consid ab'e qualifications and exceptions, that history segins in Novel and ends in Essay. Of the romantic historians Herodoms is the earliest and the best. His animation, ais simple-hearted tenderness, his wonderful

The

harangue of the Archbishop on the Salic Law and the Book of Numbers differs much less from the orations which have in all ages pro ceeded from the Right Reverend bench, than the speeches of Mardonius and Artabanus, from those which were delivered at the Coun cil-board of Susa. Shakspeare gives us enumerations of armies, and returns of killed and wounded, which are not, we suspect, much less accurate than those of Herodotus. There are passages in Herodotus nearly as long as acts of Shakspeare, in which every thing is told dramatically, and in which the narrative serves only the purpose of stage-directions. It is possible, no doubt, that the substance of some real conversations may have been reported to the historian. But events which, if they ever happened, happened in ages and nations so remote that the particulars could never have been known to him, are related with the greatest minuteness of detail. We have all that Candaules said to Gyges, and all that passed between Astyages and Harpagus. We are, therefore, unable to judge whether, in the account which he gives of transactions, re specting which he might possibly have been well informed, we can trust to any thing Dr yond the naked outline; whether, for example, the answer of Gelon to the ambassadors of the