Poverty, like other rigid powers, is fometimes too haftily accufed. If the excellence of Dryden's works was leffened by his indigence, their number was increased; and I know not how it will be proved, that if he had written lefs he would have written better; or that indeed he would have undergone the toil of an author, if he had not been folicited by fomething more preffing than the love of praise.

But as is faid by his Sebaftian,

What had been, is unknown; what is, appears. We know that Dryden's feveral productions were so many fucceffive expedients for his fupport; his plays were therefore often borrowed, and his poems were almost all occafional.

In an occafional performance no height of excellence can be expected from any mind, however fertile in itself, and however ftored with acquifitions. He whofe work is general and arbitrary, has the choice of his matter, and takes that which his inclination

and

and his studies have beft qualified him to display and decorate. He is at liberty to delay his publication, till he has fatisfied his friends and himself; till he has reformed his firft thoughts by fubfequent examination; and polished away those faults which the precipitance of ardent compofition is likely to leave behind it. Virgil is related to have poured out a great number of lines in the morning, and to have paffed the day in reducing them to fewer.

The occafional poet is circumfcribed by the narrowness of his subject. Whatever can happen to man has happened so often, that little remains for fancy or invention. We have been all born; we have most of us been married; and fo many have died before us, that our deaths can fupply but few materials for a poet. In the fate of princes the publick has an intereft; and what happens tó them of good or evil, the poets have always confidered as bufinefs for the Mufe. But after so many inauguratory gratulations, nuptial hymns, and funeral dirges, he must be highly favoured by nature, or by fortune, who says any thing not faid before. Even

war

war and conqueft, however fplendid, fuggest no new images; the triumphal chariot of a victorious monarch can be decked only with thofe ornaments that have graced his predeceffors.

Not only matter but time is wanting. The poem must not be delayed till the occafion is forgotten. The lucky moments of animated imagination cannot be attended; elegancies and illuftrations cannot be multiplied by gradual accumulation: the compofition must be dispatched while converfation is yet bufy, and admiration fresh; and haste is to be made, left fome other event hould lay hold upon mankind.

Occafional compofitions may however fecure to a writer the praise both of learning and facility; for they cannot be the effect of long study, and must be furnished immediately from the treafures of the mind.

The death of Cromwell was the first publick event which called forth Dryden's poetical powers. His heroick flanzas have beauties and defects; the thoughts are vigorous, and though not always proper, fhew

VOL. H.

K

a mind

a mind replete with ideas; the numbers are fmooth, and the diction, if not altogether correct, is elegant and easy.

Davenant seems at this time to have been his favourite author, though Gondibert never appears to have been popular; and from Davenant he learned to please his ear with the stanza of four lines alternately rhymed.

Dryden very early formed his verfification: there are in this early production no traces of Donne's or Jonfon's ruggedness; but he did not fo foon free his mind from the ambition of forced conceits. In his verses on the Restoration, he fays of the King's exile,

He, tofs'd by Fate

Could tafte no fweets of youth's defired age, But found his life too true a pilgrimage.

And afterwards, to fhew how virtue and wifdom are increased by adverfity, he makes this remark:

Well might the ancient poets then confer
On Night the honour'd name of counsellor,
Since, ftruck with rays of profperous fortune
blind,

We light alone in dark afflictions find.

His praife of Monk's dexterity comprises fuch a cluster of thoughts unallied to one another, as will not elsewhere be eafily found:

'Twas Monk, whóm Providence defign'd to
loofe

Those real bonds falfe freedom did impofe.
The bleffed faints that watch'd this turning
fcene,

Did from their stars with joyful wonder lean,
To fee small clues draw vastest weights along,
Not in their bulk, but in their order strong.
Thus pencils can by one flight touch restore
Smiles to that changed face that wept before.
With ease such fond chimeras we pursue,
As fancy frames for fancy to fubdue:
But, when ourselves to action we betake,
It fhuns the mint like gold that chymifts make:
How hard was then his task, at once to be
What in the body natural we fee!

Man's Architect diftinctly did ordain

The charge of muscles, nerves, and of the brain;
Through viewless conduits fpirits to dispense
The springs of motion from the feat of fenfe.
'Twas not the hafty product of a day,
But the well-ripen'd fruit of wife delay.
He, like a patient angler, ere he strook,
Would let them play a-while upon the hook.