The rhymes of Dryden are commonly just, and he valued himself for his readiness in finding them; but he is fometimes open to objection.

It is the common practice of our poets to end the fecond line with a weak or grave fyllable:

Together o'er the Alps methinks we fly,

Fill'd with ideas of fair Italy.

Dryden sometimes puts the weak rhyme in the firft:

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 feem 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 fixth fyllable; a rule which the modern French poets never violate, but which Dryden fometimes. neglected:

And with paternal thunder vindicates his throne.

Of

Of Dryden's works it was faid by Pope, that "he could fele&t from them better specimens "of every mode of poetry than any other

English writer could fupply." Perhaps no nation ever produced a writer that enriched his language with fuch variety of models. Το him we owe the improvement, perhaps the completion of our metre, the refinement of our language, and much of the correctnefs of our fentiments. By him we were taught "fa

pere & fari," to think naturally and express forcibly. Though Davies has reasoned in rhyme before him, it may be perhaps maintained that he was the firft who joined argument with poetry. He fhewed us the true bounds of a tranflator's liberty. What was faid 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 inferted from Mr. Milbourne's verfion, that, according to his own proposal, his verses

may

may be compared with those which he cenfures.

What makes the richest tilth, beneath what figns To plough, and when to match your elms and vines; What care with Aocks and what with berds agrees, And all the management of frugal bees;

I fing, Mecenas! Ye immenfely clear,

Vaft orbs of light, which guide the rolling year;
Bacchus, and mother Ceres, if by you

We fat'ning corn for hungry maft purfue,
If, taught by you, we first the cluster preft,
And thin cold freams with Spritely juice refresht;
Ye fawns, the prefent numens of the field,
Wood-nymphs and fawns, your kind affiftance yield;
Your gifts I fing: and thou, at whofe fear'd stroke
From rending earth the firey courfer broke,
Great Neptune, O affift my artful fong;

And thou to whom the woods and groves belong,
Whose fnowy heifers on her flow'ry plains
In mighty herds the Caan Ifle maintains!
Pan, happy fhepherd, if thy cares divine,
E'er to improve thy Manalus incline;
Leave thy Lycean wood and native grove,
And with thy lucky fmiles our work approve ;
Be Pallas too, fweet-oil's inventor, kind;
And he, who first the crooked plough defign'd,
Sylvanus, god of all the woods, appear,
Whofe hands a new-drawn tender gp bear!

Ye

Ye gods and goddeffes, who e'er with love
Would guard our pastures, and our fields improve;
You, who new plants from unknown lands fupply,
And with condenting clouds obfcure the sky,
And drop them softly thence in fruitful showers ;
Affift my enterprize, ye gentle powers!

And thou, great Cæfar! though we know not yet Among what gods thou'lt fix thy lofty feat; Whether thoul't be the kind tutelar god

Of thy own Rome, or with thy awful nod Guide the vafl world, while thy great hand fhall bear

The fruits and feasons of the turning year,

And thy bright brows thy mother's myrtles

wear;

Whether thou'lt all the boundless ocean sway,
And fea-men only to thyself shall pray,

Thule, the fartheft 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 fign,
And o'er the fummer months ferenely 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

Whate'er thou'lt be; for fure the realms below
No juft pretence to thy command can show:
No fuch ambition sways thy vast desires,
Though Greece her own Elyjian fields admires.
And now, at laft, contented Proferpine

Can all her mother's earnest prayers decline.
Whate'er thou'lt be, O guide our gentle course,
And with thy fmiles our bold attempts enforce;
With me th' unknowing ruftics' wants relieve,
And, though on earth, our facred vows receive!

Mr. DRYDEN, having received from Rymer his Remarks on the Tragedies of the laft Age, wrote obfervations on the blank leaves; which, having been in the poffeffion of Mr. Garrick, are by his favour communicated to the publick, that no particle of Dryden may be loft.

"That we may the lefs wonder why pity and "terror are not now the only springs on which "our tragedies move, and that Shakspeare may "be more excufed, Rapin confeffes that the "French tragedies now all run on the tendre ; "and gives the reafon, becaufe love is the paffion which most predominates in our "fouls, and that therefore the paffions reprefented become infipid, unless they are "conformable

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