tilian 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 by the art of dreffing it; or fuperficial, which, by what he gives, fhews what he wanted; or erroneous, haftily collected, and negligently scattered.

Yet it cannot be faid that his genius is ever unprovided of matter, or that his fancy languishes in penury of ideas. His works abound with knowledge, and sparkle with illuftrations. There is scarcely any science or faculty that does not fupply him with occafional images and lucky fimilitudes; every page discovers a mind very widely acquainted both with art and nature, and in full poffeffion of great ftores of intellectual

1 3

lectual wealth. Of him that knows much, it is natural to fuppofe that he has read with diligence; yet I rather believe that the knowledge of Dryden was gleaned from accidental intelligence and various converfation, by a quick apprehenfion, a judicious felection, and a happy memory, a keen appetite of knowledge, and a powerful digeftion; by vigilance that permitted nothing to pafs without notice, and a habit of reflection that fuffered nothing useful to be loft. A mind like Dryden's, always curious, always active, to which every understanding was proud to be affociated, and of which every one folicited the regard, by an ambitious display of himself, had a more pleasant, perhaps a nearer way, to knowledge than by the filent progress of folitary reading. I do not fuppofe that he despised books, or intentionally neglected them; but that he was carried out, by the impetuofity of his genius, to more vivid and fpeedy inftructors; and that his ftudies were rather defultory and fortuitous than constant and systematical.

It must be confeffed that he scarcely ever appears to want book-learning but when he

mentions

mentions books; and to him may be tranfferred the praise which he gives his master

Charles.

His converfation, wit, and

parts,

His knowledge in the noblest useful arts,
Were fuch, dead authors could not give,
But habitudes of those that live;

Who, lighting him, did greater lights receive:
He drain'd from all, and all they knew,
His apprehenfion quick, his judgement true:
That the most learn'd with fhame confefs
His knowledge more, his reading only lefs.

Of all this, however, if the proof be demanded, I will not undertake to give it; the atoms of probability, of which my opinion has been formed, lie fcattered over all his works; and by him who thinks the question worth his notice, his works must be perused with very close attention.

Criticism, either didactick or defenfive, occupies almost all his profe, except those pages which he has 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 clauses are

never balanced, nor the periods modelled; every word seems 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 himself upon our esteem, we cannot refuse him to ftand high in his own. Every thing is excufed by the play of images and the spritelinefs 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 easily escape a manner, fuch a recurrence of particular modes as may be eafily noted. Dryden is always another and the fame, he does not exhibit a fecond 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 ftyle could not cafily be imitated, either feriously or ludicroufly; for, being always equable and always varied,

varied, it has no prominent or difcriminative characters. The beauty who is totally free from difproportion of parts and features, cannot be ridiculed by an overcharged re, femblance.

From his profe, however, Dryden derives only his accidental and fecondary praise; the veneration with which his name is pronounced by every cultivator of English literature, is paid to him as he refined the language, improved the fentiments, and tuned the numbers of English Poetry.

After about half a century of forced thoughts, and rugged metre, fome advances towards nature and harmony had been already made by Waller and Denham; they had fhewn that long difcourfes in rhyme grew more pleafing when they were broken into couplets, and that verfe confifted not only in the number but the arrangement of fyllables.

But though they did much, who can deny that they left much to do? Their works were not many, nor were their minds of very

ample