matick poems was not then generally understood. Audiences applauded by instinct, and poets perhaps often pleafed by chance." "The Dialogue on the Drama was one of his first effays of criticifm, written when he was yet a timorous candidate for reputation, and therefore laboured with that diligence which he might allow himself fomewhat to remit, when his name.gave fanction to his pofitions, and his awe of the public was abated, partly by custom,' and partly by fuccefs. It will not be eafy to find, in all the opulence of our language, a treatise fo artfully variegated with fucceffive reprefentations of oppofite probabilities, fo enlivened with imagery, fo brightened with illuftrations. His portraits of the English Dramatifts are wrought with great fpirit and diligence. The account of Shakespeare may stand as a perpetual model of encomiaftick criticism, exact without minutenefs, and lofty without exaggeration.--The praise lavished by Longinus on the atteftation of the heroes of Marathon by Demofthenes, fades away before it. In a few lines it exhibited a character fo extenfive in its comprehenfion, and fo curious in its limitations, that nothing can be added, diminished, or reformed; nor can the Editors and Admirers of Shakefpeare, in all their emulation of reverence, boast of much more than of having diffused and paraphrased this epitome of excellence, of having changed Dryden's gold for bafer metal, of lower value though of greater .bulk." "As to his learning (fays Johnson) it will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever made any great advances in literature. Having diftinguished himself at Weftminfter under the tuition of Bufby, who advanced his fcholars to a height of knowledge very rarely attained in Grammar-Schools, and refided afterwards at Cambridge, it is not to be supposed that his skill in the ancient languages was deficient, compared with that of common common students; but his fcholaftick acquifitions feem not proportionate to his opportunities and abilities. He could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illustrious merely by his learning. He mentions but few books, and those such as lie in the beaten track of regular study; from which if ever he departs, he is in danger of lofing himself in unknown regions. 66 Criticism, either didactick or defenfive, occupies almost all his profe, except those pages which he had devoted to his patrons; but none of his prefaces were ever thought tedious. They have not the formality of a fettled ftyle, in which the first half of the fentence betrays the other. The claufes are never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word feems to drop by chance, though it falls into its proper place. Nothing is cold or languid; the whole is airy, animated, and vigorous; what is little, is gay; what is great, is fplendid. He may be thought to mention himself too frequently; but while he forces himfelf upon our efteem, we cannot refufe him to stand high in his own. Every thing is excufed by the play of images and the sprightlinefs of expreffion. Though all is eafy, nothing is feeble; though all feems careless, there is nothing harsh; and though fince his earlier works more than a century has paffed they have nothing yet uncouth or obfolete. "He who writes much, will not eafily efcape a manner, such a recurrence of particular modes as may be easily noted. Dryden is always another and the fame, he does not exhibit a second time the fame elegancies in the fame form, nor appears to have any art other than that of expreffing with clearness what he thinks with vigour. His ftile could not easily be imitated, either seriously or ludicrously; for, being always equable and always varied, it has no prominent or difcriminative characters. The beauty who is totally free from difproportion of parts and features cannot be ridiculed by any over-charged refemblance." D After After separately examining almost every article of Dryden's Works (in which procefs it is not poffible for us to follow him), Johnfon' thus characterises the celebrated Ode for St. Cecilia's Day: "The Ode for St. Cecilia's Day, perhaps the laft effort of his poetry, has been always confidered as exhibiting the higheft flight of fancy, and the exactest nicety of art. This is allowed to ftand without a rival. If indeed there is any excellence beyond it, in fome other of Dryden's works that excellence muft be found. Compared with the Ode on Killigrew, it may be pronounced perhaps fuperior in the whole, but without any fingle part equal to the first ftanza of the other. "It is faid to have coft Dryden a fortnight's labour; but it does not want its negligences: fome of the lines are without correfpondent rhymes; a defect, which I never detected but after an acquaintance of many years, and which the enthusiasm of the writer might hinder him from perceiving. "His laft ftanza has less emotion than the former; kut is not lefs elegant in the diction. The conclufion vitious; the mufick of Timotheus, which raised a onarch to the fkies, had only a metaphorical power; hat of Cecilia, which drew an Angel down, had a real effect: the crown therefore could not reasonably be divided." "In a general furvey of Dryden's labours, he appears to have had a mind very comprehenfive by nature, and much enriched with acquired knowledge. His compofitions are the effects of a vigorous genius operating upon large materials. "The power that predominated in his intellectual operations was rather strong reason than quick fenfibility. Upon all occafions that were presented, he studied rather than felt, and produced fentiments not fuch as nature enforces, but meditation fupplies. With the fimple and elemental paffions, as they fpring feparate in the the mind, he seems not much acquainted; and feldom describes them but as they are complicated by the various relations of fociety, and confused in the tumults and agitations of life. "What he fays of love may contribute to the explanation of his character: "Love various minds does variously inspire, "With pride it mounts, or with revenge it glows. "Dryden's was not one of the gentle bofoms: Love as it fubfifts in itself, with no tendency but to the perfon loved, and withing only for correfpondent kindnefs, fuch love as fhuts out all other intereft, the love of the golden age, was too foft and fubtile to put his faculties in motion. He hardly conceived it but in its turbulent effervefcence with fome other defires; when it was inflamed by rivalry or obftructed by difficulties, when it invigorated ambition or exasperated revenge. "He is therefore, with all his variety of excellence, not often pathetick; and had fo little fenfibility of the power of effufions purely natural, that he did not esteem them in others. Simplicity gave him no plea fure; and for the first part of his life he looked on Otway with contempt, though at laft, indeed very late, he confeffed that in his play there was nature, which is the chief beauty. "We do not always know our own motives. I am not certain whether it was not rather the difficulty which he found in exhibiting the genuine operations of the heart, than a fervile fubmiffion to an injudicious, audience, that filled his plays with falfe magnificence. It was neceffary to fix attention; and the mind can be D 2 captivated captivated only by recollection, or by curiofity; by reviving former thoughts or impreffing new: fentences were readier at his call than images; he could more eafily fill the ear with fome fplendid novelty, than awaken those ideas that flumber in the heart. "The favourite exercife of his mind was ratiocinanation, and, that argument might not be too foon at an end, he delighted to talk of liberty and neceffity, deftiny and contingence; these he difcuffes in the language of the school with fo much profundity, that the terms which he uses are feldom understood. It is indeed learning, but learning out of place. "When once he had engaged himself in difputation, thoughts flowed in on either fide: he was now no longer at a lofs; he had always argument at command; verbaque provifam rem---gave him matter for his verse, and he finds without difficulty verse for his matter. "InComedy, for which he profeffes himself not naturally qualified, the mirth which he excites will perhaps not be found fo much to arife from any original humour, or peculiarity of character nicely diftinguished and diligently purfued, as from incidents and circumftances, artifices and furprizes: from jests of action rather than of fentiment. What he had of humorous or paffionate, he feems 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 fallies of fentiment, 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 abfurdity, and hover over the abyfs of unideal vacancy. This inclination fometimes produced nonfenfe, which he knew." After cenfuring him for too frequently making use of French words, with other fimilar improprieties, Johnson thus proceeds-- "Thefe |