He is therefore by no means conftant to himself. His defence and defertion of dramatick rhyme is generally known. Spence, in his remarks on Pope's Odyffey, produces what he thinks an unconquerable quotation from Dryden's preface to the Eneid, in favour of tranflating an epick poem into blank verfe; but he forgets that when his author attempted the Iliad, fome years afterwards, he departed from his own decifion, and again tranflated into. rhyme.

When he has any objection to obviate, or any license to defend, he is not very fcrupulous about what he afferts, nor very cautious, if the prefent purpose be ferved, not to entangle him

felf

felf in his own fophiftries. But when all arts are exhaufted, like other hunted animals, he fometimes ftands at bay; as he cannot difown the groffness of one of his plays, he declares that he knows not any law that prefcribes morality to a comick poet.

His remarks on ancient or modern writers are not always to be trufted. His parallel of the verfification of Ovid with

that of Claudian has been very juftly cenfured by Sewel. His comparison of the first line of Virgil with the first of Statius is not happier. Virgil, he says, is foft and gentle, and would have thought Statius mad if he had heard him thundering out

Quæ fuperimpofito moles geminatal

coloffo.

n 2

Statius

Statius perhaps heats himfelf, as he proceeds, to exaggerations fomewhat hyperbolical; but undoubtedly Virgil would have been too hafty, if he had condemned him to ftraw for one founding line. Dryden wanted an inftance, and the first that occurred was impreft into the fervice.

What he wishes to fay, he fays at hazard; he cited Gorbuduc, which he had never feen; gives a falfe account of Chapman's verfification; and difcovers, in the preface to his Fables, that he translated the first book of the Iliad, without knowing what was in the fecond.

It will be difficult to prove that Dryden ever made any great advances in literature. As having diftinguifhed himself

at Westminster under the tuition of Buf

by, who advanced his fcholars to a height of knowledge very rarely attained in grammar-fchools, he refided afterwards at Cambridge, it is not to be fuppofed that his skill in the ancient languages was deficient, compared with that of common ftudents; but his fcho-laftick acquifitions feem not propor-tionate to his opportunities and abilities. He could not, like Milton or Cowley, have made his name illuftrious merely by his learning. He mentions but few books, and thofe fuch as lie in the beaten track of regular ftudy; from which if ever he departs, he is in danger of lofing himself in unknown re-gions.

In his Dialogue on the Drama, he pronounces with great confidence that the Latin tragedy of Medea is not Ovid's, because it is not fufficiently interefting and pathetick. He might have determined the queftion upon furer evidence; for it is quoted by Quintilian as the work of Seneca; and the only line which remains of Ovid's play, for one line is left us, is not there to be found. There was therefore no need of the gravity of conjecture, or the difcuffion of plot or fentiment, to find what was already known upon higher authority than fuch difcuffions can ever reach..

His literature, though not always free from oftentation, will be commonly found. either obvious, and made his own